eaning forward as if to reassure her:
"There! I've frightened you! Please don't be alarmed. I assure you,
there's nothing to be anxious about. Although I don't know positively
where Felix is, just now, I do know he has suffered no harm, no real
harm, and I believe, I am quite sure, he will be back here again as
well as ever, before very long. I came here to tell you this."

She studied his face for a moment and somehow, against her will, the
conviction came upon her that this man was moved, as he declared, by
good motives.

"It was kind of you," she replied at last with a gracious smile, "and
I thank you very much. I was quite anxious, but I believe what you
have told me and I am greatly relieved."

He looked pleased and exclaimed impulsively: "And I thank you for your
confidence in me!"

As he rose to go, his glance once more traveled quickly down over her
face and figure and returned to her eyes with a look in his own that
her woman's instinct knew to mean appreciation, interest, liking.

"By the way," he said, turning impulsively toward her and speaking in
a quick, brusque way, "there is another matter I must not forget. It
was part of my reason for coming here. There was a letter--you
remember--that Felix had you write the last day he was here and then
asked you not to send just then. You haven't mailed it yet, have you?"

She stared at him in astonishment and said "No," before she could take
counsel of her caution.

"I didn't suppose you had. However, I happen to know, he told me, that
he would like you to send it at once, just as it stands now."

Henrietta was so astounded by this revelation of the intimacy that
must exist between the two men that for a moment she could not reply.
For the letter was concerned with an effort Brand was making to get
control of the marble quarry company in which he had invested some
months before, and she knew that he was keeping the matter very secret
and considered it of great importance. It had worried her more than
anything else in his arrested affairs, for she hesitated to mail it
without farther instructions from him and yet had feared that if she
did not his plans might fall through.

Gordon went on without appearing to notice her surprise, although she
felt sure that he saw it and was amused by it. "As you know, he wanted
to wait a day or two for certain developments at the other end."

Henrietta nodded. "Yes, and I have not been able to find out just what
happene