She sat up very straight, took the flowers from him and pressed them to her nostrils, looking at him very steadily and with a strange warmth in her eyes--a warmth that made him return her gaze incredulously. "Yes," she said. "The flowers aren't too bad, is that what you're trying to tell me? But my drawings--" "No," she said. "That isn't what I'm trying to tell you. I like both the flowers and the drawings. But these new drawings--well, they're a little on the terrific side, if you don't mind my saying so. And they _are_ saleable. I can guarantee it. I can't do too much to help, because we only need six more drawings this month, and six sales to the Eaton-Lathrup publications will do no more than start you off. But when we've published six, I'm sure you won't have any difficulty in selling the rest to other publications." "It went against the grain," he said. "I don't quite know why I did it." She continued to look at him, and the warmth in her eyes told him why, but it took him quite a long while to grasp it. * * * * * It was over and they'd released him. Ralph Gilmore still had to appear in court on an illegal firearms possession charge, but that big detective he'd disliked so much at first had assured him that the worst he'd get would be a suspended sentence. The law was designed, apparently, to discourage gangsters from carrying weapons--although it didn't always work that way--and a young writer, without a criminal record, would be shown a great deal of leniency. Everyone, even judges, expected writers to behave a little strangely, a little differently from other people and that would count in his favor. He hoped the big detective was right about that. It would worry him and keep him awake nights until the ordeal was over, because just the thought of appearing in court to answer a quite serious charge terrified him. No reason why it should now, he told himself. He'd had the book thrown at him, hadn't he? He'd been booked at a police station, taken into court, fingerprinted and confined in a cell for more than a week. If he could survive that, he could survive anything. And the way they'd questioned him, in a room without windows and a bright light flooding down--Not the third degree really, nothing as bad as that. But it had been bad enough. There was a tap on the door and he looked up quickly. "Who is it?" he demanded. "It's me--Nora. I heard about all what happened to you. I wanted to die myself, Ralph--I swear it." He arose slowly, went to the door and opened it. "I told your mother about it," he said. "I went to that office with the intention of killing her. But at the last moment--I couldn't do it. I went there on the very morning of the murder. And I bought a gun--" "I know, Ralph ... I know, darling. It's painful to talk about and there's no reason why you should, now. You know I love you." "Yes ... and I love you, Nora. I must have been crazy not to realize it sooner."