son I came. I wanted to get away from everything
that--spoke of her."

Marie-Louise slipped down from the ladder and came and stood beside him.
"_He told you_," she said in a sharp whisper, "but there must be some
mistake. She doesn't love him. She said that she didn't. I wonder why he
lied."

There was nothing cold about her now. She was a fiery spark. "Only
a--_cad_ could do such a thing--and I thought--oh, Dr. Dicky, I thought
he was a _man_----"

She flung herself at his feet like a stricken child. He went down to her.
"Marie-Louise, stop. Sit up and tell me what's the matter."

She sat up. "I shall ask Anne. I shall go and get her and ask her."

He found himself calling after her, "Marie-Louise," but she was gone.

She came back presently, dragging the protesting Anne. "But Marie-Louise,
what do you want of me?"

Richard, rising, said, "Please don't think I permitted this. I tried to
stop her."

"I didn't want to be stopped," Marie-Louise told them. "I want to know
whether you and Geoffrey Fox are going to be married."

Anne's cheeks were stained red. "Of course not. But it isn't anything to
get so excited about, is it, Marie-Louise?"

"Yes, it is. He told Dr. Dicky that you were, and he _lied_. And I
thought, oh, you know the wonderful things I thought about him, Mistress
Anne."

Anne's arm went around the sad little nymph in green. "You must still
think wonderful things of him. He was very unhappy, and desperate about
his eyes. And it seemed to him that to assert a thing might make it come
true."

"But you didn't love him?"

"Never, Marie-Louise."

And now Richard, ignoring the presence of Marie-Louise, ignoring
everything but the question which beat against his heart, demanded:

"If you knew that he had told me this, why didn't you make things clear?"

"When I might have made things clear--you were engaged to Eve."

She turned abruptly from him to Marie-Louise. "Run back to your poet,
dear heart. He is waiting for the book that you were going to bring him.
And remember that you are not to sit in judgment. You are to be eyes for
him, and light."

It was a sober little nymph in green who marched away with her book.
Geoffrey sat on the stone bench a little withdrawn from the others. His
lean face, straining toward the house, relaxed as she came within his
line of vision.

"You were a long time away," he said, and made a place for her beside
him, and she sat down and opened her book.

And