Tom promised, but thought his clients must be more numerous than they were at present before that consummation of her wishes. And so the matter was settled, and Tom was radiant when he went in to Rex, who startled him by asking: “How is your business?” “Fair, but not as good as I wish it were,” Tom said, thinking of the inexpensive flat in which he and Rena were to live. Rex nodded and said next: “You still expect to marry Rena?” “Certainly,” Tom answered. “We settled everything this morning. We shall be married at Christmas and live in a flat, where the dining-room is not much larger than that great round mahogany table in your Richmond home.” “Oh,” Rex said, with a gesture of dissent, “Rena is too airy a bird to be caged up like that with Tom, Dick and Harry above and below her and only Tom with her.” He laughed a little at his own joke, and then went on: “She has money?” “Yes, some, and might have had more if she had not spent it so lavishly, but I shall not touch it. I prefer to take care of my wife myself,” Tom answered proudly. “Good for you,” Rex replied, and was silent for a moment. Then he burst out abruptly. “You and Rena have tried your experiment on me, and it came near being my death. Miss Bennett says I was very ill at one time, but all I can remember is that eye, or rather the _eyes_, which bothered me so, making me dizzy and nauseated and wild. You have no idea how they made me shiver and sweat and crawl. You know what I did and saw at the well, and I am so stupid I never dreamed it was a joke till Sam told me she was looking over my shoulder. The fever was coming on, of course, but the shock made it worse, and I’ve had a hard time, but I am better now, and am going to try an experiment on you, or rather on Rena. I am going to propose to her!” “Great Heavens! Are you crazy?” Tom exclaimed, with a feeling as if Rex had struck him. “Perhaps,” Rex answered. “At all events, I am a different man from what I was before this illness. Something has wrought a change in me. You know how afraid I used to be of women, and how I shrank from talking to—to—Miss Irene, and how you used to call me a fool, as I was, and may be yet, but somehow the fear of a woman’s dress is gone. Perhaps it was having Miss Bennett potter round me so much, and perhaps it was the touch of Rena’s hands which brought such cooling with them. Don’t look so savage. You owe me something for the trick you played on me,” he continued, as Tom’s brows knitted together in a frown. “I am going to be frank and tell you that if I had felt as I do now when I first met Rena and had known the truth, I believe I should have contended even against you, my best friend. But I didn’t know. I thought the other was the one, and you did not undeceive me.” “I know it and am ashamed of it,” Tom interrupted. “I was a villain, but I had sworn to tell you when I came back, and Irene knew it.”