t agree with you about that, Garda, though I confess that for a
moment, when I first came upon Mr. Spenser at the door, I was as
frightened as you were. But it didn't last, there was no ground for it."

Garda shook her head. "You don't understand--"

"Perhaps I don't," answered Margaret, with rather a weary intonation.
"If Lucian didn't get your note, where is it?"

"The Doctor got it. That is the way he knew, don't you see? Pablo gave
it to him."

"Pablo--the servant who could not betray you?"

"You mean that for sarcasm; but there's no cause," Garda answered. "Poor
old Pablo was never more devoted to me, according to his light, than
when he went to the Doctor; he knew he could trust the Doctor as he
trusted himself. You don't comprehend our old servants, Margaret; you
haven't an idea how completely they identify themselves with 'de
fambly,' as they call it. Well, Pablo didn't tell the Doctor anything in
actual words, and in fact he had nothing to tell except 'the eastern
path;' I told him that myself, you remember. I presume he suggested in
some roundabout way that the Doctor should take an evening walk through
that especial 'nigh-cut.'" And Garda laughed. "And of course he gave him
the note--nothing less than that would have brought the Doctor out there
at that hour; Pablo probably pretended that he couldn't take the note
himself on account of his rheumatism, and asked the Doctor to send
somebody else with it; and then the Doctor said he would take it
himself. And, through the whole, you may be sure that neither of them
made the very least allusion to _me_. The Doctor had the 'eastern path'
to guide him, and the certainty that I had written to Lucian--for of
course he saw the address; with that he started off."

"You think that he did not open the note?"

"Open it? Nothing could have made him open it."

"But he is your guardian, and as such, under the circumstances--"

"He might be twenty guardians, and under a thousand circumstances, and
he would never do it," said Garda, securely. "I presume he burned it
just as it was; I have no doubt he did. Margaret, I wonder if you
remember how strange and cold you were to me that night when you came
home? Of course I knew that the Doctor would go straight back to Madam
Giron's as soon as he had seen me safely inside my own door, and I
couldn't help being dreadfully anxious. I waited, and waited. And at
last you came. But you were so silent! you scarcely spoke to me; y