_Grinnidge_: “Well, I swear! Cash value of twenty-five dollars, and untold toil in coloring it!” _Ransom_, listening with an air of mystification: “Who’s that?” _She_: “Gummidge, Grimmidge—whatever you called him. Oh!” _She_ arrests herself in consternation. “Now I _have_ done it!” _He_: “Done what?” _She_: “Oh—nothing!” _He_: “I don’t understand. Do you mean to say that my friend Grinnidge’s room is on the other aide of the wall, and that you can hear him talk through the register?” _She_ preserves the silence of abject terror. He stoops over the register, and calls down it. “Grinnidge! Hallo!” _Grinnidge_: “Hallo, yourself!” _Ransom_, to _Miss Reed_: “Sounds like the ghostly squeak of the phonograph.” To _Grinnidge_: “What’s the trouble?” _Grinnidge_: “Smashed my pipe. Dozed off and let it drop on this infernal register.” _Ransom_, turning from the register with impressive deliberation: “Miss Reed, may I ask _how_ you came to know that his name was Gummidge, or Grimmidge, or whatever I called him?” _She_: “Oh, dearest, I _can’t_ tell you! Or—yes, I had better.” Impulsively: “I will judge you by myself. _I_ could forgive _you_ anything!” _He_, doubtfully: “Oh, could you?” _She_: “Everything! I had—I had better make a clean breast of it. Yes, I had. Though I don’t like to. I—I listened!” _He_: “Listened?” _She_: “Through the register to—to—what—you—were saying before you—came in here.” Her head droops. _He_: “Then you heard everything?” _She_: “Kill me, but don’t look _so_ at me! It was accidental at first—indeed it was; and then I recognized your voice; and then I knew you were talking about me; and I had so much at stake; and I did love you so dearly! You _will_ forgive me, darling? It wasn’t as if I were listening with any bad motive.” _He_, taking her in his arms: “Forgive you? Of course I do. But you must change this room at once, Ethel; you see you hear everything on the other side, too.” _She_: “Oh, not if you whisper on this. You couldn’t hear _us_?” At a dubious expression of his: “You _didn’t_ hear us? If you did, I can never forgive you!” _He_: “It was accidental at first—indeed it was; and then I recognized your voice; and then I knew you were talking about me; and I had so much at stake; and I did love you so dearly!” _She_: “All that has nothing whatever to do with it. How much did you hear?” _He_, with exemplary meekness: “Only what you were saying before Grinnidge came in. You didn’t whisper then. I had to wait there for him while”— _She_: “While you were giving your good resolutions a rest?” _He_: “While I was giving my good resolutions a rest.” _She_: “And that accounts for your determination to humble yourself so?” _He_: “It seemed perfectly providential that I should have known just what conditions you were going to exact of me.” _She_: “Oh, don’t make light of it! I can tell you it’s a very serious matter.”