f you'd rather not go
on----"

She lowered her eyes. He felt a thrill that he could not analyze, it
lay so close to jealousy and hope. And whatever it was, he knew it was
out of the bargain, and not in the least his right.

"It wasn't for myself I asked," he hastened to add. "I'll act my part
till you dismiss me. I only thought if another man were to come upon
the scene----"

The far-off sound of a ringing house-bell came indistinctly to his
ears. Dorothy looked up in his face with a startled light in her great
brown eyes that awoke a new interest within him.

"The bell," she said. "I heard it! Who could be coming here to-night?"

She slipped to the door, drew it open an inch, and listened there
attentively.

Garrison was listening also. The door to the outside steps, in the
hall below, was opened, then presently closed with a slam. The
caretaker had admitted a caller.

"Good! I'd like to see him!" said the voice of a man. "Upstairs?"

Dorothy turned to Garrison with her face as white as chalk.

"Oh, if you had only gone!" she said.

"What's the trouble?" he asked. "Who's come?"

"Perhaps you can slip in my room!" she whispered. "Please hurry!"

She hastened across the apartment to a door, with Garrison following.
The door was locked. She remembered she had locked it herself, from
the farther side, since the advent of her uncle in the house.

She turned to lead him round, by the hall. But the door swung open
abruptly, and a tall, handsome young man was at the threshold. His hat
was on. He was dressed, despite the season, in an overcoat of
extraordinary length, buttoned close round his neck. It concealed him
from his chin to his heels.

"Why, hello, Dot!" he said familiarly, advancing within the room. "You
and your Jerold weren't trying to run away, I hope."

Dorothy struggled against her confusion and alarm.

"Why, no," she faltered. "Cousin Ted, you've never met Mr. Fairfax.
Jerold, this is my cousin, Mr. Theodore Robinson."

"How do you do?" said Garrison, nodding somewhat distantly, since none
of the Robinson group had particularly appealed to his tastes.

"How are you?" responded Dorothy's cousin, with no attempt to conceal
an unfriendly demeanor. Crossing to Dorothy with deliberate intent to
make the most of his relationship, he caught her by the arms.

"How's everything with you, little sweetheart?" he added in his way of
easy intimacy. "What's the matter with my custom