A younger and more pessimistically disposed man than I might conceivably have been plunged into the depths of despair at being thus told by the woman he loved that she hated him. But, on the whole, I was not inclined to be altogether dissatisfied with the interview. Never before--even though her words were sympathetic and her manner not unkindly--had she failed to make me realise that I was kept at a distance; that I was an unvouched-for stranger, between whom and her the barriers of custom and convention still necessarily existed. But her words and her acts of to-day--so it seemed to me--were a tacit admission that the barrier had been removed. She had concerned herself sufficiently in my career to express a wish in regard to it (though here I fear she acted on her aunt's instigation rather than from any impulse or inclination of her own); she had made the granting of that wish a favour to herself, and had even suffered me to declare my love unreproved. Her tears had, I admit, at the moment utterly dismayed me; but remembering the subsequent by-play of the uneclipsed eye, I was now disposed to think either that those tears were caused by pique at the fact that I had not more promptly acceded to her request, or that they were no more than the legitimate use of a woman's natural weapon for the confounding and undoing of man. Possibly, too--so I tried to persuade myself--the exclamation "I hate you--I hate you!" was less an expression of personal dislike than a pretty woman's very pardonable exhibition of captiousness at finding herself thwarted where she had expected immediate submission and consent. With the assistance of Miss Clara, I hoped soon to regain whatever ground I had lost in her niece's favour, and as, after leaving us, the older lady had made straight for the garden, and had (as I could see from the window) been pacing it bareheaded, hands clasped behind her and deep in thought, I ventured to lift the window, and to ask her to spare me a moment before I went. She came in at once, looking, I thought, a trifle tired and pale, but otherwise all trace of agitation was gone, and she spoke with all her usual self-possession. "Mr. Rissler," she said, coming to the point as usual, the instant the door was closed; "what have you and Clara been talking about?" "My work," I answered laconically. "I'm to throw up crime investigation, and devote myself to something else." "And you have promised?" "Well, no, I haven't. I had the temerity to ask for some reason why I should be called upon to take so extraordinary a course, with the result that your niece first burst into tears, and then flung out of the room in a passion. Do you know why?" She did not condescend to answer. "Mr. Rissler," she said, "give up this detective work at once. Devote all your time to book-writing, and I'll stand your friend. Refuse, and you do not enter the house or see Clara again."