nd
and sat staring thoughtfully at his legs, stretched to their fullest
length. "I rather wish I could talk with her," he said, "Madame Beattie.
I don't see how I can though, unless I go there."

"Jeff," said Alston, earnestly, "you mustn't do that."

He spoke unguardedly, and now that the words were out, he would have
recalled them. But he made the best of a rash matter, and when Jeff
frowned up at him, met the look with one as steady.

"Why mustn't I?" asked Jeff.

It was very quietly said.

"I beg your pardon," Choate answered. "I spoke on impulse."

"Yes. But I think you'd better go on."

Alston kept silence. He was looking out of the window now, pale and
immovably obstinate.

"Do you, by any chance," said Jeff, "think Esther is afraid of me?"

Choate faced round upon him, immediately grateful to him.

"That's it," he said. "You've said it. And since it's so, and you
recognise it, why, you see, Jeff, you really mustn't, you know."

"Mustn't go there?" said Jeff almost foolishly, the thing seemed to him
so queer. "Mustn't see my wife, because she says she is afraid of me?"

"Because she _is_ afraid of you," corrected Choate impulsively, in what
he might have told himself was his liking for the right word. But he had
a savage satisfaction in saying it. For the instant it made it seem as
if he were defending Esther.

"I'd give a good deal," said Jeff slowly, "to hear just how Esther told
you she was afraid of me. When was it, for example?"

"It was at no one time," said Choate unwillingly. Yet it seemed to him
Jeff did deserve candour at all their hands.

"You mean it's been a good many times?"

"I mean I've been, in a way, her adviser since--"

"Since I've been in jail. That's very good of you, Choate. But do you
gather Esther has told other people she is afraid of me, or that she has
told you only?"

"Why, man," said Choate impatiently, "I tell you I've been her adviser.
Our relations are those of client and counsel. Of course she's said it
to nobody but me."

"Not to Reardon," Jeff's inner voice was commenting satirically. "What
would you think if you knew she had said it to Reardon, too? And how
many more? She has spun her pretty web, and you're a prisoner. So is
Reardon. You've each a special web. You are not allowed to meet."

He laughed out, and Alston looked at him in a sudden offence. It seemed
to Alston that he had been sacrificing all sorts of delicacies that Jeff
might be justly use