It was an Herculean task that confronted him and he realized fully the labor necessary to its accomplishment. He dove into the work with an enthusiasm that augured well for the achievement of the end he had in view. He outlined a system; he drafted a schedule of diversion and recreation, which he promised himself he would adhere to. It permitted of meetings with Florence on only two nights of the week. For a month he did not swerve a hair's breath from this plan of employment, but at the end of that period he sent her a brief note breaking an engagement to drive with her on the Sunday following. He beseeched Crowley to call upon her and explain, which Crowley did, while Houston, locked in his room, studied. During that call Crowley suffered an embarrassment he had never before experienced in Florence's presence. The John Alden part he had been so summarily cast to act, he felt did not fit him. As for Florence, she perceived his discomfort and surmising something of its cause adapted herself to the situation delicately. "Do you think he'll win?" she asked eagerly after Crowley had made the necessary explanations. "Win!" he exclaimed. "He'll win or go clear daft, if he keeps on working like he's been doing the past three weeks. He's getting thinner, too," he added--"actually getting thinner; hadn't you noticed?" And he laughed with her at the thought of Houston wearing himself to a shadow over books of archeology. It _was_ very absurd. Understanding well that Florence had had some hand in the change of Houston's fortunes, he hesitated upon the point of asking her to tell him all about it. They had been very candid in the past. He recalled their walk by the river and the conversation of that afternoon bearing upon Jack's misdeeds. But, for some reason that he could not, for his dulness, fathom now, he _did_ hesitate. Houston had never told him what was the precise relation between him and Florence, and for him now, he thought, in the event of a secret engagement, perhaps, to seek to learn from her what that relation might be---- It was too delicate, he concluded, altogether too delicate. "I do hope," she said, "you won't let him get sick working so hard." "Oh, you needn't worry," he replied, significantly, "I don't think there's any immediate danger." After a moment she said, bluntly: "You haven't any real faith in him, even now, have you, Jim?" He was a little startled by her question. Had she, he asked himself, been sitting there reading his mind as though it were a show bill, printed in large type? He felt, for the moment, decidedly uncomfortable. "You haven't, have you?" she repeated. "Why, yes," he replied, somewhat indefinitely. "Why yes I have, too." She shook her yellow head and smiled. "I'm afraid not," she said quietly.