le table, with nothing to do but listen and refill his cup.

"Well," she said mildly, and without the least surprise at his figures,
"I don't know what he could have been thinking of--your Priam Farll! I
call it just silly. It isn't as if there wasn't enough picture-galleries
already. When what there are are so full that you can't get in--then it
will be time enough to think about fresh ones. I've been to the National
Gallery twice, and upon my word I was almost the only person there! And
it's free too! People don't _want_ picture-galleries. If they did they'd
go. Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson's? And you have
to pay there! Silly, I call it! Why couldn't he have left his money to
you, or at any rate to the hospitals or something of that? No, it isn't
silly. It's scandalous! It ought to be stopped!"

Now Priam had resolved that evening to make a serious, gallant attempt
to convince his wife of his own identity. He was approaching the
critical point. This speech of hers intimidated him, rather complicated
his difficulties, but he determined to proceed bravely.

"Have you put sugar in this?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "But you've forgotten to stir it. I'll stir it for
you."

A charming wifely attention! It enheartened him.

"I say, Alice," he said, as she stirred, "you remember when first I told
you I could paint?"

"Yes," she said.

"Well, at first you thought I was daft. You thought my mind was
wandering, didn't you?"

"No," she said, "I only thought you'd got a bee in your bonnet." She
smiled demurely.

"Well, I hadn't, had I?"

"Seeing the money you've made, I should just say you hadn't," she
handsomely admitted. "Where we should be without it I don't know."

"You were wrong, weren't you? And I was right?"

"Of course," she beamed.

"And do you remember that time I told you I was really Priam Farll?"

She nodded, reluctantly.

"You thought I was absolutely mad. Oh, you needn't deny it! I could see
well enough what your thoughts were."

"I thought you weren't quite well," she said frankly.

"But I was, my child. Now I've got to tell you again that I am Priam
Farll. Honestly I wish I wasn't, but I am. The deuce of it is that that
fellow that came here this morning has found it out, and there's going
to be trouble. At least there has been trouble, and there may be more."

She was impressed. She knew not what to say.

"But, Priam----"

"He's paid me five hundred to-day for