d quietly. She sat down in her chair
again, rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, in the
pose already so familiar to him, and added quietly, "He is the source of
all my present trouble."

She stopped and turned her head to listen.

"Do you hear anything moving in the hall?" she asked, almost in a
whisper.

"No. Shall I look?"

She shook her head. "Don't unbolt the door."

"You're nervous. I'm sure there's nothing there. Please go on," he
urged. "Our little friend Bertie--"

Seeing her expression, he stopped short. "Forgive me," he said, humbly.
"But the plain truth is, it's awfully hard for me to take that fellow
seriously. Oh, I know he's venomous," he conceded, "but I can't help
feeling that he hasn't as much power over you as you think he has."

He realized that she was listening, but not to him.

"There _is_ some one outside that door!" she whispered.

Laurie leaped to the door as noiselessly as a cat, unbolted it, and
flung it open. The hall was empty. He had an instantaneous impression
that something as silent as a moving shadow had vanished around the
staircase at the far end, but when he reached the spot he saw nothing
save the descending iron spirals of successive stairways. He returned to
his companion, smiling reassuringly.

"It's our nerves," he said. "In a few minutes more I shall be worrying
about Bertie, myself."

"Bolt the door again," she directed.

He obeyed. She went on as if there had been no interruption to their
talk.

"It isn't what he is," she admitted. "He himself is nothing, as you say.
It's what is back of him that--that frightens me! Why don't you smoke?"
she interrupted herself to ask.

Laurie automatically selected and lit another cigarette.

"I know what's going to be back of Bertie pretty soon," he darkly
predicted. "Whoever he is, and whatever he is doing, he has a big jolt
coming to him, and it's coming fast."

He laid down the cigarette and turned to her with his most charming
expression, a wonderfully sweet smile, half shy, wholly boyish. Before
this look, any one who loved Laurence Devon was helpless.

"Come," he said gently, "tell me the whole story. You know it's not
curiosity that makes me ask. But how can I help you when I'm working in
the dark?"

As she hesitated, his brilliant eyes, so softened now, continued to hold
hers.

"And I want to help you," he added. "I want that privilege more than I
want anything else in the world."

Fo