“To-morrow--sometime before noon.” And as Clifford continued his keen glance: “You doubt me? All right.” He walked to a section of his bookshelves and came back with a large, dingy volume. “Here’s a Bible--a Gutenberg, 1455. There can’t be a holier Bible than this; just think, man, what it cost. Go ahead--swear me.” “I guess you’ll do it,” said Clifford. He rose. “I believe that’s all, gentlemen. Good-night.” As he started away Bradley glowered at him; but Loveman, slipping an arm through his, escorted him to the door. There Loveman held him for a moment. “That was one grand fairy-tale, Clifford, you dreamed about me,” he said with a smile through which (perhaps purposely) there glinted ever so little of mockery. “But supposing I do have any little plan under way, I wonder how close you’ve come to guessing it? Now, I wonder?” Down in the quiet street, Clifford found himself wondering too. CHAPTER IX THE TEST OF LIFE Now that he had won, now that the marriage and Loveman’s plans were potentially blocked, there should have been a let-down from Clifford’s long strain. But there was not. The settling of this affair seemed only to give mind-room to other concerns. He tossed about restlessly during the few hours that remained of the night; and he realized that his restlessness was not due wholly to the suspense of waiting for the finality that would come with Loveman’s completed promise. In the slow hours before the coming of the slate-colored dawn a vague, disturbing doubt crept in upon him. He had interfered with events, he had tried to shape life upon his ideas: was his course right?--that seemed to be something of the impalpable substance of his doubt. But what this new doubt was, strive as he would he could not evoke it from its vagueness into definite shape. He had breakfast; and then, obeying an impulse which seemed to emerge from this new, obscure maze of his mind, he suddenly decided to see Mary Regan again--for what purpose he had no idea. Arrived at the Grantham he had his name ’phoned up to “Mrs. Gardner,” and was informed that Mrs. Gardner would see him. Mary herself admitted him, and, not even replying to his “good-morning,” she led him into the sitting-room. There she faced him, proud and coldly defiant. “I suppose you have come to inform me you have told the Mortons all about me?” “No,” he replied. “Then, to threaten me again that you will tell?” “No.” “Then, what have you come for?” He knew now--at least partly. During the moment he had been in the room and had gazed upon her, there had emerged from the maze of his thoughts and feelings, a sharply defined repugnance to what within the next hour or two was to happen between her and Loveman: a repugnance, felt in her behalf, that she should be made to yield to whatever influences that cunning little lawyer would be able to exert.