Everything was finally in place at the Lorna Doone, and with the actual beginning of their lease-hold Paul moved his personal chattels from Mrs. St. Aubyn's to the flat, and slept there nights. This was the twenty-fifth of August. A week later Jean climbed the Acme Painless Dental Company's sign-littered stairway for her last day's service. She was a little late, owing to a fire which had impeded traffic in a near-by block, and the morning's activity at the parlors was already under way. She busied herself first, as usual, at her desk, sorting the mail which the postman had just left. In addition to the office mail there were personal letters for Grimes and the various members of the staff, which she presently began to distribute, reaching Paul's operating-room last of all. The dentist was at work, but he glanced up when she entered and sent her a loverlike look over his patient's head. No creature with eyes and a reasoning brain could have misread it, and the occupant of the chair, who had both, squirmed to view its object; but Paul threw in a strategic "Wider, please," and held the unwilling head firmly to the front. "Chuck them anywhere, Jean," he directed, his glance dropping to her hand. Her obedience was literal; the next instant the letters strewed the rug at his feet. With the enunciation of the name, the patient twisted suddenly from Paul's grasp, and Jean found herself staring full into the malignant eyes of Stella Wilkes. Paul first found voice. "We'll go on, Miss Wilkes," he said, his gaze still intent upon the tragic mask, which was Jean. Stella waved him aside. "Hold your horses, Doc," she rejoined coolly. "I've met an old friend." "Do you know each other?" It was to Jean he put the question. [Illustration: "Do you know each other?"] Stella answered for her. "Do I know Jean Fanshaw!" Sure of how matters stood between these two, sure also of her own rôle in the drama, she sprang from the chair and bestowed a Judas kiss upon Jean's frozen cheek. "Do I know her! Why we're regular old pals!" Freed somehow from that loathsome touch, Jean stumbled to her desk. Patients came and went, the routine of the office ran its course; her share in the mechanism got itself mechanically performed; yet, whether she sped or welcomed, plied the cash-register, receipted bills, or soothed a nervous child, some spiteful goblin at the back of her brain was ever whispering the shameful tale which Stella was pouring out in that inner room. Those lies would be past Paul's forgetting, perhaps even past his forgiving, say what she might in defense. His look at Stella's kiss had been ghastly. What was he thinking now! Then, when her agony of suspense seemed bearable no longer, came Stella, her pretense of friendship abandoned, her real vengeful self to the fore. "I guess we're square," she bent to whisper, her face almost touching Jean's. "I guess we're square."