s from your point of view, and I will give you my opinion
of the case."

His tone was so completely dispassionate and matter-of-fact, that it
had a calming effect on Garth, giving him also a sense of security. The
doctor might have been speaking of a sore throat, or a tendency to
sciatica.

Garth leaned back in his chair, slipped his hand into the breast-pocket
of his jacket, and touched a letter lying there. Dare he risk it? Could
he, for once take for himself the comfort of speaking of his trouble to
a man he could completely trust, and yet avoid the danger of betraying
her identity to one who knew her so intimately?

Garth weighed this, after the manner of a chess-player looking several
moves ahead. Could the conversation become more explicit, sufficiently
so to be of use, and yet no clue be given which would reveal Jane as
the One Woman?

Had the doctor uttered a word of pressure or suggestion, Garth would
have decided for silence. But the doctor did not speak. He leaned
forward and reached the poker, mending the fire with extreme care and
method. He placed a fragrant pine log upon the springing flame, and as
he did so he whistled softly the closing bars of Veni, Creator Spiritus.

Garth, occupied with his own mental struggle, was, for once, oblivious
to sounds from without, and did not realise why, at this critical
moment, these words should have come with gentle insistence into his
mind:

"Keep far our foes; give peace at home;
Where Thou art Guide, no ill can come."

He took them as an omen. They turned the scale.

"Brand," he said, "if, as you are so kind as to suggest, I give myself
the extreme relief of confiding in you, will you promise me never to
attempt to guess at the identity of the One Woman?"

The doctor smiled; and the smile in his voice as he answered, added to
Garth's sense of security.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I never guess at other people's secrets. It
is a form of mental recreation which does not appeal to me, and which I
should find neither entertaining nor remunerative. If I know them
already, I do not require to guess them. If I do not know them, and
their possessors wish me to remain in ignorance, I would as soon think
of stealing their purse as of filching their secret."

"Ah, thanks," said Garth. "Personally, I do not mind what you know. But
I owe it to her, that her name should not appear."

"Undoubtedly," said the doctor. "Except in so far as she herself,
choo