"Mr. Hunt," she said, "I should like to talk to you very plainly. May I? It's about Susan." I nodded. "Mr. Hunt," she continued resolutely, "Susan is in a very difficult position here. I don't say that she isn't entirely equal to meeting it; but I dread the nervous strain for her--if you understand?" "Not entirely, Miss Goucher; perhaps, not at all." "I was afraid of this," she responded unhappily. "But I must go on--for her sake." Knowing well that Miss Goucher would face death smiling for Susan's sake, her repressed agitation alarmed me. "Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "Is there anything really wrong?" "A good deal." She paused, her lips whitening as she knit them together, lest any ill-considered word should slip from her. Miss Goucher never loosed her arrows at random; she always tried for the bull's-eye, and usually with success. "I am speaking in strict confidence--to Susan's protector and legal guardian. Please try to fill in what I leave unsaid. It is very unfortunate for Susan's peace of mind that you should happen to be a married man." "For _her_ peace of mind!" "Yes." "Wait! I daren't trust myself to fill in what you leave unsaid. It's too--preposterous. Do you mean---- But you can't mean that you imagine Susan to be in love with--her grandfather?" My heart pounded, suffocating me; with fright, I think. "No," said Miss Goucher, coldly; "Susan is not in love with her grandfather. She is with you." I could manage no response but an angry one. "That's a dangerous statement, Miss Goucher! Whether true or not--it ruins everything. You have made our life here together impossible." "It is impossible," said Miss Goucher. "It became so last summer. I knew then it could not go on much longer." "But I question this! I deny that Susan feels for me more than--gratitude and affection." "Gratitude is rare," said Miss Goucher enigmatically, her eyes fixed upon the fragments of Buddha littering my hearth. "True gratitude," she added, "is a strong emotion. When it passes between a man and a woman, it is like flame." "Very interesting!" I snapped. "But hardly enough to have brought you here to me with this!" "She feels that you need her," said Miss Goucher. "I do," was my reply. "Susan doesn't need _you_," said Miss Goucher. "I don't wish to be brutal; but she doesn't. In spite of this, she can easily stand alone." "I see. And you think that would be best?" "Naturally. Don't you?" "I'm not so sure." As I muttered this my eyes, too, fixed themselves on the fragments of Buddha. Would the woman never go! I hated her; it seemed to me now that I had always hated her. What was she after all but a superior kind of servant--presuming in this way! The irritation of these thoughts swung me suddenly round to wound her, if I might, with sarcasm, with implied contempt. But it is impossible to wound the air. With her customary economy of explanation Miss Goucher had, pitilessly, left me to myself. IV