gs felt
weak.

"Anything the matter?" asked Garstin, gazing at her with keen attention
and curiosity.

"No," she said coldly. "Good-bye."

And she went down the stairs followed by Arabian.

Garstin did not accompany them. He had gone to stand before his picture
of Arabian.

Miss Van Tuyn opened the door. A soft gust of wind blew some small rain
into her face.

"Let me hold my umbrella over you, please," said Arabian. "Do take my
arm while we look for a taxi."

"No, no!"

She walked on.

"There is nothing the matter, I hope?"

"I had some bad news through the telephone."

She felt impelled to say this to him, though she had said nothing to
Garstin. Her brain still felt horribly overcharged, and an impulse had
come to her to seek instant relief.

"My father is dead," she added.

As she spoke she looked up at him, and she saw a sharp quiver distort
his lips for an instant.

"Did you know him?" she exclaimed, standing still.

"I? Indeed no! Why should you suppose so?"

"I thought--I don't know!"

He was now looking so calm, so earnestly sympathetic, that she almost
believed that her eyes had played her a trick and that his face had not
changed at her news.

"I'm not normal to-day," she thought.

"I am deeply grieved, deeply. Please accept from me my most full
sympathy."

"Thank you. I scarcely ever saw my father, but naturally this news has
upset me. He died in the Bahamas."

"How very sad! So far away!"

"Yes."

They were still standing together, and he was holding his umbrella over
her head and gazing down at her earnestly, when Craven turned the corner
of the road and came up to them. Miss Van Tuyn flushed. Although she
had asked Craven to come, she felt startled when she saw him, and her
confusion of mind increased. She did not feel competent to deal with the
situation which she had deliberately brought about. Craven had come upon
them too suddenly. She had somehow not expected him just at that moment,
when she and Arabian were standing still. Before she was able to recover
her normal self-possession, Craven had taken off his hat to her and gone
rapidly past them. She had just time to see the grim line of his lips
and the hard, searching glance he sent to her companion. Arabian, she
noticed, looked after him, and she saw that, while he looked, his
large eyes lost all their melting gentleness. They had a cruel, almost
menacing expression in them, and they were horribly intelligent at tha