lmost of secret terror, this time not wholly concealed. He could have
sworn that her hands were cold.

"He met with an accident many years ago," she said slowly. "Both his
legs were amputated. He spends his life in a little carriage which he
wheels about himself."

"Poor fellow!" Hamel exclaimed, with a strong man's ready sympathy for
suffering. "That is just as much as I have heard about him. Is he a
decent sort of fellow in other ways? I suppose, anyhow, if he has really
taken a fancy to my little shanty, I shall have to give it up."

Then, as it seemed to him, for the first time real life leaped into
her face. She leaned towards him. Her tone was half commanding, half
imploring, her manner entirely confidential.

"Don't!" she begged. "It is yours. Claim it. Live in it. Do anything you
like with it, but take it away from Mr. Fentolin!"

Hamel was speechless. He sat a little forward, a hand on either
knee, his mouth ungracefully open, an expression of blank and utter
bewilderment in his face. For the first time he began to have vague
doubts concerning this young lady. Everything about her had been so
strange: her quiet entrance into the carriage, her unusual manner of
talking, and finally this last passionate, inexplicable appeal.

"I am afraid," he said at last, "I don't quite understand. You say the
poor fellow has taken a fancy to the place and likes being there. Well,
it isn't much of a catch for me, anyway. I'm rather a wanderer, and I
dare say I shan't be back in these parts again for years. Why shouldn't
I let him have it if he wants it? It's no loss to me. I'm not a painter,
you know, like my father."

She seemed on the point of making a further appeal. Her lips, even, were
parted, her head a little thrown back. And then she stopped. She said
nothing. The silence lasted so long that he became almost embarrassed.

"You will forgive me if I am a little dense, won't you?" he begged. "To
tell you the truth," he went on, smiling, "I've got a sort of feeling
that I'd like to do anything you ask me. Now won't you just explain a
little more clearly what you mean, and I'll blow up the old place sky
high, if it's any pleasure to you."

She seemed suddenly to have reverted to her former self--the cold and
colourless young woman who had first taken the seat opposite to his.

"Mine was a very foolish request," she admitted quietly. "I am sorry
that I ever made it. It was just an impulse, because the little buildin