eath the trees of Fontainebleau.

"You know that very well," said he.

He laid down the poker and crossed the room to a chair.

"I've often thought of what you said in Paris about her going away. You
were quite right. You have a genius for saying and doing the simple right
thing. We almost began our friendship by your saying it. Do you remember?
It was in Monte Carlo. You remember that you didn't like my looking on Mrs.
Middlemist as an advertisement. Oh, you needn't look uncomfortable, my dear
fellow. I loved you for it. In Paris you practically told me that I
oughtn't to regard her as a kind of fetich for the Cure, and claim her
bodily presence. You also put before me the fact that there was no more
reason for her to believe in the Cure than yourself or Hegisippe Cruchot.
If you could tell me anything more," said he earnestly, "I should value
it."

What he expected to learn from Septimus he did not know. But once having
exalted him to inaccessible heights, the indomitable idealist was convinced
that from his lips would fall words of gentle Olympian wisdom. Septimus,
blushing at his temerity in having pointed out the way to the man whom he
regarded as the incarnation of force and energy, curled himself up
awkwardly in his chair, clasping his ankles between his locked fingers. At
last the oracle spoke.

"If I were you," he said, "before going mad or breaking my heart, I should
wait until I saw Zora."

"Very well. It will be a long time. Perhaps so much the better. I shall
remain sane and heart-whole all the longer."

* * * * *

After dinner Sypher went round to "The Nook," and executed his difficult
mission as best he could. To carry out Septimus's wishes, which involved
the vilification of the innocent and the beatification of the guilty, went
against his conscience. He omitted, therefore, reference to the demoniac
rages which turned the home into an inferno, and to the quarrels over the
machine for elongating the baby's nose. Their tempers were incompatible;
they found a common life impossible; so, according to the wise modern view
of things, they had decided to live apart while maintaining cordial
relations.

Mrs. Oldrieve was greatly distressed. Tears rolled down her cheeks on to
her knitting. The old order was changing too rapidly for her and the new
to which it was giving place seemed anarchy to her bewildered eyes. She
held up tremulous hands in protest. Husband and wife l