The doctor sank heavily into his own chair. Hy, mystified, watched him and waited. The man reached for a paper-weight--a brass model of his first mission house from Africa or Madagascar or somewhere--and placed it before him on top of the unopened morning's mail, moved it this way, then a little that way and looked at it critically. Hy, more and more startled, a thought hypnotized, leaned forward on the desk and gazed at that little brass house. Finally the doctor spoke: “I have an unpleasant duty--but it is not a matter that I can lightly pass over--” Hy paled a little, knit his brows, stared with increasing intensity at that mission house of brass. “For a long time, Mr. Lowe, I have felt that your conduct was not--” “Oh,” thought Hy, in a daze, “my conduct was not--” “--was not--well, in keeping with your position.” “With my position.” Hy's numb mind repeated. “This is not a matter of a particular act or a particular occasion, Mr. Lowe. For a long time it has been known to me that you sought undesirable companions, that you have been repeatedly seen in--in Broadway resorts.” Hy's mind was stirring awake now, darting this way and that like a frightened mouse. Some one had been talking to the doctor--and very recently. The man was a coward in office matters; he had been goaded to this. The “for a long time,” so heavily repeated, was of course a verbal blind. Could it have been--not Miss Hardwick. Then Hy was surprised to hear his own voice: “But this is a charge, Doctor Wilde! A charge should be definite.” The words came mechanically. Hy must have read them somewhere. “I surely have a right to know what has bcen said about me.” “I don't know that it is necessary to be specific,” said the doctor, apparently now that the issue was joined, finding his task easier. “I must insist!” cried Hy, on his feet now. He was thinking--“What has she told him? What does she know? What does she know!” “Sit down!” said Doctor Wilde. Hy sat down. His chief moved the mission house a trifle to square it with the edge of the desk. “To mention only one occasion,” went on the doctor's voice--“though many are known to me, I am well informed regarding the sort of life you are known to be leading. You see, Mr. Lowe, you must understand that the office atmosphere of _My Brother's Keeper_ is above reproach. Ability alone will not carry a man here. There are standards finer and truer than--” A rhetorical note was creeping into the man's voice. He turned instinctively to sec if Miss Hardwick was catching the precious words as they fell from his lips; then with his eyes on her empty chair he floundered. The telephone rang. Hy, with alacrity grown out of long practise in fending for his chief, reached for it. “Oh, Mr. Lowe--” It was the voice of the pretty little telephone girl: “It's a lady! She simply won't be put off! Could you--” “Tell him,” said Hy with cold solemnity, “that I am in an important Conference.” “I did tell her that, Mr. Lowe.”