"I know, my dear. I'm sorry for poor old Kilbourne. I daresay he didn't kill his wife; but something's happened to him, and she did die uncommonly sudden. Anyhow, from what Bryant said, it's evident he's lost his nerve and his courage. At that rate, he'll precious soon lose his post." * * * * * Kate Grantley and Kilbourne, arriving from opposite directions, reached his gate at the same moment, the next morning. Rudely chalked upon the stone post was the question which had confronted Kilbourne on his class-room walls. He pointed to the words with his stick which shook in his hand; his face was ashen white. "Isn't it fitting that you and I should be confronted by that question?" he asked her. She stared from the writing to him. "I don't think it at all fitting!" she said. "Why don't you send for a policeman, and stop it?" He pushed open the gate, and, taking no further notice of her, walked up the little path to his door. Reaching it, he found her behind him. With that air of girlish authority he had once found so pleasant, "I am coming in," she said. He led the way into that bow-windowed room in which Mrs Kilbourne had died. The pervading aroma of alcohol had left it; airiness and a certain formal tidiness now reigned in place of stuffiness and neglect; but the room was perhaps more depressing than before to a sensitive mind. The sofa was in the same place; the basket, which had held the things she liked to have at hand, still stood beside it. The over-large table at which the unfortunate Julia had so often watched her husband eat his unappetising meals, and where he still made a pretence of eating them in sight of the empty sofa, still occupied too much of the available space. Kilbourne turned and confronted the girl, who had followed him in. His eyes shone now, and there was the working of excitement in his face. "I thought we had said our last words," he began; "I thought that that, at least, was done with--and you were going away. You have no right to follow me, Kate, to overthrow me in this fashion. My strength is almost exhausted; I have tried too much--too much--and all alone----" "I know," she said, with her fine air of decision. "That is why I have come. You mustn't be alone any more. You must come with us." He had tossed away his hat, and thrust his hands which were shaking, into his coat-pockets. He turned with excitement upon her, but she went firmly on. "With Alick and me. You are too good for the post you hold; with your degrees you can easily get a better one. Come to Paris. Turn your back upon all that has been depressing and worrying you; upon this melancholy room"--she gazed round upon the unlovely space--"upon this"--she waved a peremptory, small hand towards the vacant sofa. He looked at her with his accusing eyes, with a scarcely controlled emotion; but she stopped him when he tried to speak.