of an
intermeddler, a bearer of scandalous tales; I would remember that
morning when we had stood by the cabin door and I told her not to be
afraid for I was guarding her. Was I guarding her?

For two weeks I kept puzzling over my course of action. I felt that
the knowledge I held was hers by right, and hers, not mine, to judge of
its triviality. Yet I could not bring myself to face her with it.
Then came the time when I had to speak at once if I was to speak at all.

Mr. Hanks sent for me. As I stood before him, he studied me through
his spectacles with his cold eyes, as he had studied me in those days
when I was trying to persuade him to give me work, and I began counting
my sins, wondering if in the cataclysm of ill luck which had overtaken
me, I was to lose my position also.

After a moment he asked, as casually as he might have assigned me to an
expedition to Harlem a few years before: "Malcolm, how soon can you
leave for London?"

"At once," I said, and I spoke as casually as he, though my heart
leaped at the mention of London, for here I sensed an opportunity
beyond my wildest hopes.

"At once," he laughed and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "I told
the old man you would say that. He said that you were too young to
fill Colt's shoes. Colt is ill, Malcolm; has to come home for a year's
rest and I have backed you to do his work awhile. Of course, you won't
do it as well as he, but you will do it fairly well, I think."

"I will do my best," said I, smiling.

"That is the way to talk," he returned. "I need hardly tell you to
keep your head and work hard, and perhaps you will pull through till
Colt gets back. He will be a little hurt when he sees his substitute.
He has been there twenty years and feels himself quite a figure in the
world, but as he has cabled for relief at once, he can't complain if we
send him the one man who is always ready to go anywhere at once.
Really, you have three days; you sail on Saturday."

I could have gone that day, had Hanks commanded it. The trust which he
imposed in me was my reward for always having obeyed him without
question, and in my state of mind that morning, between walking from
his office to the steamer for years of absence and staying as I was, I
should have chosen the former alternative. I wanted to get away. The
only place where I could find even the shadow of contentment was at my
desk. There imperative tasks filled a mind at other times occupied