ted my case, and I place it entirely in your hands. I
will give you what I have written, and if you choose to read it and do
not like it, you can throw it into the fire. The subject matter is
yours, and I have no rights over it. But if you think that the work
which you have decided to discontinue can be successfully carried on by
me, I shall be delighted to go ahead and finish it."

"Walkirk," said I, "you have the effrontery of a stone sphinx; but let
me see your manuscript."

He handed it to me, and during the rest of the morning, and for a great
part of the night, after I had returned in a late train from the city, I
read it. The next day I handed it to him.

"Walkirk," said I, "as my under-study go ahead and finish this book. You
never came nearer the truth than when you said that that material is
vastly interesting."

Walkirk was delighted and took up the work with enthusiasm. Whenever I
had a chance I talked to him, and whenever he had a chance he wrote.
However, at that time, I gave so much of my business to my under-study
that he was not able to devote himself to his literary work as
assiduously as he and I would have desired. In fact, the book is not yet
finished, but when it appears I think it will be a success.

LI.

A LOOSE END.

I was now a very happy man, but I was not an entirely satisfied one.
Looking back upon what had happened, I could see that there were certain
loose ends, which ought to be gathered up before they were broken off
and lost, or tangled up with something to which they did not belong.

It has always been my disposition to gather up the loose ends, to draw
together the floating strands of circumstance, tendency, intention, and
all that sort of thing, so that I may see what they are and where they
come from. I like to know how I stand in relation to them, and how they
may affect me.

One of the present loose ends was brought to my mind by a conversation
with Sylvia. I had been speaking of her cousin Marcia Raynor, and
expressing my pleasure that she was about to enter a new life, to which
she seemed so well adapted.

"Marcia is a fine woman," she said, "and I love her ever so much, but
you know she has caused me a great deal of pain; that she has actually
made me cry when I was in bed at night."

I assured her that I had never imagined such a thing possible.

"Of course," Sylvia continued, "I do not refer to the way she acted just
before the House of Martha was broke