"Mavis! Ah, the girl you are in love with. What is she to Major Rebb, may I ask?" Mrs. Crosbie's voice rose when she put this question, and her eyes grew as hard as jade, while her face colored a deep red. "Ah," said Haskins, surprised, "then you love Rebb?" "No! But he is rich and----I don't see what right you have to ask me such questions. Go on. What have you to say?" "If you love Rebb I can't speak." "I don't love Rebb. Go on. I'll keep my promise." Gerald hesitated no longer. Rising to his feet he again began to pace the room, and related the same story as he had told Tod. Only in this especial instance he suppressed his theory regarding the will and the money. Mrs. Crosbie listened quietly, and with an expression of dismay; but she made no remark until he had finished. "You are telling me a fairy tale," she said quietly. "Yes, isn't it?" cried Gerald, delighted with her quietness. "I mean that it is untrue." "I swear it isn't. Mavis is kept in that Pixy's House, and I found her by means of the sealed message, as I have described. Now I want you to get her up here, and look after her until I can marry." "Who will bring her here?" "I shall, and within three or four weeks." "Ah!" said Mrs. Crosbie quietly, "now I see why you asked me to hold my tongue for a month. Gerald, you are wrong to act in this way. As I have made a promise I shall keep it; but it will be better for you to release me from that promise. Then I could ask Major Rebb about his ward and persuade him to let me have her up here. In any case, when I marry Major Rebb, I shall have to do with this girl you love." "What you suggest, Madge, would certainly be better and, I may say, more straightforward. I hate acting in this way behind Rebb's back, and I intend later to speak plainly to his face. But you forget how Rebb has put it about that Mavis is a homicidal maniac. That is untrue." "You can't be sure of that, Gerald; you have not seen sufficient of her to judge. To take a girl, reputed mad, from her seclusion would be very wicked. Any crime which she might commit would be laid at your door." "But surely, Madge, the action of Major Rebb is not that----" "He may have, and probably has, good grounds for shutting up the girl." Gerald bit his lip, beginning to see that, with all his caution, he had made a dire mistake. "Then you won't help me?" "No," said Mrs. Crosbie firmly, "how can you expect me to help you against Major Rebb, when we are engaged to be married? And how can you ask me to take charge of a girl who is mad?" "She is not mad, I tell you." "And I tell you that she is mad; otherwise Major Rebb certainly would not shut her up. What reason could he have to shut up a sane girl?" It was on the point of Haskins' tongue to explain his theory, but having made one mistake--as he plainly saw from Mrs. Crosbie's attitude--he did not wish to make another. "You will keep your promise of silence?" he urged earnestly.