tched hand, then
looked away quickly to where her father was standing.

"I almost thought," said Leroux, "that you had deserted me."

"No," said Helen, seeming to speak with an effort--"we--my father,
thought--that you needed quiet."

Denise Ryland nodded grimly.

"But now," she said, in her most truculent manner, "we are going to...
drag you out of... your morbid... self... for a change... which you
need... if ever a man... needed it."

"I have just prescribed a drive," said Dr. Cumberly, turning to them,
"for to-morrow morning; with lunch at Richmond and a walk across the
park, rejoining the car at the Bushey Gate, and so home to tea."

Henry Leroux looked eagerly at Helen in silent appeal. He seemed to fear
that she would refuse.

"Do you mean that you have included us in the prescription, father?" she
asked.

"Certainly; you are an essential part of it."

"It will be fine," said the girl quietly; "I shall enjoy it."

"Ah!" said Leroux, with a faint note of contentment in his voice; and he
reseated himself.

There was an interval of somewhat awkward silence, to be broken by
Denise Ryland.

"Dr. Cumberly has told you the news?" she asked, dropping for the moment
her syncopated and pugnacious manner.

Leroux closed his eyes and leant back upon the couch.

"Yes," he replied. "And to think that I am a useless wreck--a poor
parody of a man--whilst--Mira is... Oh, God! help me!--God help HER!"

He was visibly contending with his emotions; and Helen Cumberly found
herself forced to turn her head aside.

"I have been blind," continued Leroux, in a forced, monotonous voice.
"That Mira has not--deceived me, in the worst sense of the word, is
in no way due to my care of her. I recognize that, and I accept my
punishment; for I deserved it. But what now overwhelms me is the
knowledge, the frightful knowledge, that in a sense I have misjudged
her, that I have remained here inert, making no effort, thinking her
absence voluntary, whilst--God help her!--she has been"...

"Once again, Leroux," interrupted Dr. Cumberly, "I must ask you not to
take too black a view. I blame myself more than I blame you, for having
failed to perceive what as an intimate friend I had every opportunity to
perceive; that your wife was acquiring the opium habit. You have told me
that you count her as dead"--he stood beside Leroux, resting both hands
upon the bowed shoulders--"I have not encouraged you to change that
view. One who has c