"I shall be better than nothing," replied Arbuthnot, quietly. "I can do what I am told to do, and she mustn't be left alone. If her mother had been alive, she would have gone; if her father had been well, he would have gone; if her husband had been here"-- "But he is not here," said Tredennis, with a bitterness not strictly just. "Heaven only knows where he is." "It would be rather hazardous to trust to a telegram reaching him at Merrittsville," said Arbuthnot. "We are not going to leave her alone even until we have tried Merrittsville. What must be done must be done now. I will go and see Doctor Wentworth at once, and we can leave in an hour if I find him. You can tell the professor I was called away." He made a step toward the door, and as he did so Tredennis turned suddenly. "Wait a moment," he said. Arbuthnot came back. "What is it?" he asked. There was a curious pause, which, though it lasted scarcely longer than a second, was still a pause. "If _I_ go," said Tredennis, "it will be easier to explain my absence to the professor." And then there was a pause again, and each man looked at the other, and each was a trifle pale. It was Arbuthnot who spoke first. "I think," he said, without moving a muscle, "that you had better let me go." "Why?" said Tredennis, and the unnatural quality of his voice startled himself. "Because," said Arbuthnot, as calmly as before, "you will be conferring a favor on me, if you do. I want an excuse for getting out of town, and--I want an opportunity to be of some slight service to Mrs. Amory." Before the dignity of the stalwart figure towering above his slighter proportions he knew he appeared to no advantage as he said the words; but to have made the best of himself he must have relinquished his point at the outset, and this he had no intention of doing, though he was not enjoying himself. A certain cold-blooded pertinacity which he had acquired after many battles with himself was very useful to him at the moment. "The worst thing that could happen to her just now," he had said to himself, ten minutes before, "would be that he should go to her in her trouble." And upon this conviction he took his stand.