"I'm not. I think it's--" Her face changed suddenly. "Oh, yes, I'm interested--very much interested," she corrected hastily. "But I mean I--I don't know anything about it. But I--I'm trying to learn. Perhaps you-- _Can_ you tell me anything about these things?" Something in her face, the fateful "learn," and her embarrassed manner, sent his thoughts back to the scene between them years before. Stifling an almost uncontrollable impulse to query, "Is it to please _him_, then, that you must learn archæology?" he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he smiled. "Oh, I know a _little_ something of them, it's true; but I've just been chatting with a man out in the front shop who could talk to you by the hour about those things--and grow fat on it. He's looking at a toby jug now. Shall I bring him in?" "No, no, Mr. Estey, of course not!" "But, really, you'd find him interesting, I'm sure. I met him in Egypt last year. His name is Denby--a New Englander like-- Why, Mrs. Darling, what is the matter? Are you faint? You're white as chalk!" She shook her head. "No, no, I'm all right. Did you mean"--with white lips she asked the question--"Mr. John Denby?" She threw a quick look at Betty, who was now halfway across the room standing in awed wonder before a huge Buddha. "No, this is Burke Denby, John Denby's son. I met them both last year. But you seem to-- Do you know them?" "Yes." She said the word quietly, yet with an odd restraint that puzzled him. He saw that the color was coming back to her face--what he could not see or know was that underneath that calm exterior the little woman at his side was wildly adjuring herself: "Now, mind, mind, this is an emergency. Mind you meet it right!" He saw that she took one quick step toward Betty, only to stop and look about her a little uncertainly. "Mr. Estey,"--she was facing him now. Her chin was lifted determinedly, but he noticed that her lips were trembling. "I do not want to see Mr. Burke Denby, and he _must not_ see me. There is no way out of this place, apparently, except through the front shop, where he is. I want you to go out there and--and talk to him. Then Betty and I can slip by unnoticed." "But--but--" stammered the dumfounded man. "Mr. Estey, you _will_ do what I ask you to--and please go--_quickly_! He's sure to come out to see--these." She just touched the case of Babylonian tablets. To the man, looking into her anguished eyes, came a swift, overwhelming revelation. He remembered, suddenly, stories he had heard of a tragedy in Burke Denby's domestic affairs. He remembered words--illuminating words--that this woman had said to him. It could not be-- And yet-- He caught his breath. "Is he--are you--" "I am Mrs. Burke Denby," she interrupted quietly. "You will not betray me, I know. Now, will you go, please?" For one appalled instant he gazed straight into her eyes; then without a word he turned and left her.