“At the office, tomorrow morning,” he commanded. With a sigh of relief at the reprieve, Rainey slipped back into the bedroom. Winthrop had persuaded himself that in seeking to speak with Vera, he was making only a natural choice between preventing the girl from perpetrating a fraud, or, later, for that fraud, holding her to account. But when she actually stood before him, he recognized how absurdly he had deceived himself. At the mere physical sight of her, there came to him a swift relief, a thrill of peace and deep content; and with delighted certainty he knew that what Vera might do or might not do concerned him not at all, that for him all that counted was the girl herself. With something of this showing in his face, he came eagerly toward her. “Vera!” he exclaimed. In the word there was delight, wonder, tenderness; but if the girl recognized this she concealed her knowledge. Instead, her eyes looked into his frankly; her manner was that of open friendliness. “Mabel tells me you want to talk to me,” she said evenly “but I don’t want you to. I have something I want to say to you. I could have written it, but this”--for an instant the girl paused with her lips pressed together; when she spoke, her voice carried the firmness and finality of one delivering a verdict--“but this,” she repeated, “is the last time you shall hear from me, or see me again.” Winthrop gave an exclamation of impatience, of indignation. “No,” returned the girl, “it is quite final. Maybe you will not want to see me, but--” Winthrop again sharply interrupted her. His voice was filled with reproach. “Vera!” he protested. “Well,” said the girl more gently, “I’m glad to think you do, but this is the last, and before I go, I--“. “Go!” demanded Winthrop roughly. “Where?” “Before I go,” continued the girl, “I want to tell you how much you have helped me--I want to thank you--“. “You haven’t let me thank you,” broke in Winthrop, “and, now, you pretend this is our last meeting. It’s absurd!”. “It is our last meeting,” replied the girl. Of the two, for the moment, she was the older, the more contained. “On the contrary,” contradicted the man. He spoke sharply, in a tone he tried to make as determined as her own. “Our next meeting will be in ten minutes--at my sister’s. I have told her about this afternoon, and about you; and she wants very much to meet you. She has sent her car for you. It’s waiting in front of the house. Now,” he commanded masterfully, “you come with me, and get in it, and leave all this”--he gave an angry, contemptuous wave of the hand toward the cabinet--“behind you, as,” he added earnestly, “you promised me you would.” As though closing from sight the possibility he suggested, the girl shut her eyes quickly, and then opened them again to meet his. “I can’t leave these things behind me,” she said quietly.