“Mrs. Findlay asked me to say could she speak to you for a minute.” “Yes—yes.” Haworth roused himself and cleared his throat. “Tell her I’ll go up there and—and see what she wants.” “Yes sir.” A moment later he knocked at Edith’s door and she opened it. They stood silent. Suddenly he snatched both her hands and held them pressed against him. “Oh!” she breathed—a sort of whispered groan—and turned her head away for God knows what—perhaps a last feeble effort to avert the catastrophe she knew was coming. Soon she turned to him again and spoke unsteadily, almost whispering. “This was what I—what I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I’ve been thinking it over, and now—you see—you see the way things are—I can’t——Don’t you see I’ll have to go?” “No!” “Yes!” “I couldn’t let you! How could I when I love you so!” She was looking up in his face and her lips moved. Though no sound came from them, he could feel what she was trying to say—knew it almost before she began—and had her close in his arms, kissing her madly, blindly, impetuously; whispering brokenly the few words of endearment he knew. It seemed hardly a moment, but it was in reality a large number of them, before the violent closing of the front door recalled Edith and Haworth to the surface of the earth. Not only were they made acquainted by this with the circumstance of Findlay’s return, but the demonstration following said closing gave a fairly reliable indication of his condition, consisting as it did of a burst of song and a bit of incoherent monologue. “I’m going to lock you in,” Haworth whispered in Edith’s ear. “Yes.” He locked the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket. Then he went along the corridor to the rear of the house, down the servants’ staircase, and through the passage into the main hall. Augustus was preparing to negotiate the stairs. “Well, how-dy-do!” he said, supporting himself by one of the newel posts. “You see before you, Misser Haworth, a shinin’ ezample of the pernishus influences of too mush happinish!” Haworth stood silently regarding him. “I’m shorry,” he went on. “Deeply an’ shincerely—e—sinsherely shorry. But it was on account o’ shelibrashun! Yes, sir—shelibration! You’ll be d’lighted to hear th’ glad tidings that I got a posishun. Yes, sir—though I say it myself they took me on to-day at the Boshun Nalb’ny freight yards. You know men are very scarce!” “They must be,” said Haworth; and turning away he went into the living room. From there he could hear Augustus finally accomplish the (for him) considerable feat of ascending the stairs, and from the summit of the same negotiate the short distance to his room. In a moment he heard him come out again and walk heavily down the corridor to the room occupied by Mrs. Findlay.