ng look, as
with eyes like bronze suns Kitty continued:

"So, though it was wrong--wicked--in one way, I read the letter, to do
some good by it, if it could be done. If I hadn't read it you wouldn't
be here. Was it worth while?"

At that moment there was a knock at the outer door of the other room,
or, rather, on the lintel of it. Mona started. Suppose it was her
husband--that was her thought.

Kitty read the look. "No, it isn't Mr. Crozier. It's the Young Doctor. I
know his knock. Will you come and see him?"

The wife was trembling, she was very pale, her eyes were rather staring,
but she fought to control herself. It was evident that Kitty expected
her to do so. It was also quite certain that Kitty meant to settle
things now, in so far as it could be done.

"He knows as much as you do?" asked Mrs. Crozier.

"No, the Young Doctor hasn't read the letter and I haven't told him
what's in it; but he knows that I read it, and what he doesn't know he
guesses. He is Mr. Crozier's honest, clever friend. I've got an idea--an
invention to put this thing right. It's a good one. You'll see. But I
want the Young Doctor to know about it. He never has to think twice. He
knows what to do the very first time."

A moment later they were in the other room, with the Young Doctor
smiling down at "the little spot of a woman," as he called Crozier's
wife.

CHAPTER XIV. AWAITING THE VERDICT

"You look quite settled and at home," the Young Doctor remarked, as he
offered Mrs. Crozier a chair. She took it, for never in her life had
she felt so small physically since coming to the great, new land. The
islands where she was born were in themselves so miniature that
the minds of their people, however small, were not made to feel
insignificant. But her mind, which was, after all, vastly larger in
proportion than the body enshrining it, felt suddenly that both
were lost in a universe. Her impulse was to let go and sink into the
helplessness of tears, to be overwhelmed by an unconquerable loneliness;
but the Celtic courage in her, added to that ancient native pride which
prevents one woman from giving way before another woman towards whom
she bears jealousy, prevented her from showing the weakness she felt.
Instead, it roused her vanity and made her choose to sit down, so
disguising perceptibly the disparity of height which gave Kitty
an advantage over her and made the Young Doctor like some menacing
Polynesian god.

Both these peo