“It feels funny in my mouf,” he complained. “Will my new toof come in right away? Will it, Barbara?” Jarvis drew a deep breath. “If you’ll put the boy to bed,” he said, “I’ll—wait.” He sat down by the fire, a grim look of patient endurance on his face. In the room above he could hear the light tread of Barbara’s feet, and Jimmy’s high, childish treble upraised in excited speech. “He’s telling her all he knows,” muttered Jarvis, a sick distaste for his own hateful task coming over him. It was long before Barbara returned. Jarvis had decided that she wished him to go away without speaking, when he heard her re-enter the room. He sprang to his feet. “Sit down, won’t you? And let me—explain.” Barbara lifted her head proudly. “I think I—understand,” she said. He gazed steadily at her, a frown of pain between his brows. “I have known for a long time,” she went on, “that it was all a dreadful mistake; that he—did not love me.” “And you?” leaped from his guarded lips. She looked away, a slow crimson staining her white cheeks. “I could not bear it, if——” she murmured, and was silent. “I hope you will believe me,” Jarvis said gravely, “when I tell you that what took place was not intentional on Whitcomb’s part. I know him, perhaps, better than you think.” A shadowy smile touched Barbara’s tense mouth. “Nothing—was ever—intentional with David,” she said. After a long silence she looked up at him, her eyes dry and bright. “Will you tell me,” she asked, “just what happened?” He drew a hardly controlled breath. “I will tell you what I know,” he said reluctantly. But he seemed unable to go on with his shameful story in the light of her proud eyes. “I already know,” she said quietly, “that he abandoned Jimmy early in the afternoon, and that later he was seen with——” “The woman was a waitress at the Barford Eagle,” Jarvis admitted reluctantly. “She has attended Whitcomb at table during his stay there; and so, of course——” “I know who the girl is,” Barbara told him, in a low, hurried voice. “He met the young woman on the fair grounds quite by accident,” Jarvis went on quickly. “You ought to believe that; and what followed was also, I am convinced, wholly unpremeditated.” “Well?” urged Barbara steadily. Jarvis clenched his strong hands on his knees and bent forward to stare frowningly into the fire. “Whitcomb backed his own horse heavily and won,” he said slowly. “Shortly afterward an altercation arose between himself and—a young man, who had previously been interested in the girl, Jennie Sawyer. This person Bamber, became very abusive, and——” Jarvis’s voice, which had been dry and caustic, as if he were reviewing unsavory circumstantial evidence, suddenly broke. “Barbara!” he cried. “My poor girl, must you hear it all?” She was looking at him, her eyes burning beneath her long curved lashes, the red of her under-lip caught in her white teeth.