Henshaw to pass out; "I will go
alone. Yes; it will be better."

But Henshaw did not move.

"I don't quite gather," he said in answer to Gifford's glance of inquiry,
"exactly what your object is in taking this step."

"I should have thought--" Gifford began.

"Is it," Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like
tone--"is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs
upon Miss Morriston?"

"That will be a mere incidental result," Gifford answered, shutting the
door and coming back into the room. "My object is to put it, at once and
for all, out of your power to hold over Miss Morriston the threat that
she is at any moment liable to be accused--by you of all people--of your
brother's murder, and so suggest that she is in your power."

"Why do you say by me, of all people?"

"You who profess an affection for her."

"Your word profess scarcely does me justice, Mr. Gifford," Henshaw
returned, drawing back his shut lips. "I had, and have, a very sincere
affection for Edith Morriston, which, it seems, I am not to be allowed to
declare or even have credit for. As a man of the world you can hardly
pretend to be ignorant of what a man will do when his happiness is at
stake. What he does under such a stress is no guide to his real feelings.
But we need not labour that point. My affection, genuine or not, seems to
be in no fair way to be requited, and I had already made up my mind to
leave it at that. I have merely kept up the game to this point out of
curiosity to see how far your--shall we say knight-errantry?--would lead
you. I will now relieve you from the necessity of going through an act of
Quixotic folly which would assuredly, sooner or later, have unpleasant
consequences for you."

So Gifford realized with a thrill of pleasure that he had won. He felt
that in much of his speech the man was lying; that no consideration of
mere unrequited affection had induced him to abandon his design.

"I am glad to hear you have come to a sensible conclusion," he said as
coolly as the sense of triumph would let him. "Whatever happened you
could hardly have expected your--plans to succeed."

"I don't know that," Henshaw retorted, with a touch of a beaten man's
malice. "Anyhow I have my own ideas on the subject. But looking into the
future with my brother's blood between us I think it might have turned
out a hideous mistake."

"A safe conjecture," Gifford commented, between indignation and a