aithless as Gladys Todd.

Her arms were around my neck and she whispered in my ear, that even my
father might not hear her: "Davy, take Penelope. We McLaurins always
looked down on the Blights, but that makes no difference, Davy--take
Penelope."

CHAPTER XXIII

But one day was left to me before I went to my new life, and yet I was
still asking myself if I was taking care of Penelope. I had set myself
to go through life alone, regarding all women with cynical
indifference. But of her I could not think with cynical indifference.
Her one act which might have fed my cynicism was her choice of a man of
the character of Herbert Talcott. Then, after all, I reflected, she
did not know his true character. And yet did I? Was it my place to
become a bearer of tales? Over and over I asked myself the question,
and I could find no other answer than that of affirmation, for it was
her right to know what had occurred between her father and Talcott.
And she should know it, I said at last decisively; she should know it,
not from me, but from Rufus Blight. And, telling it, I must give up my
last hope of her.

So I went to Rufus Blight on the afternoon before I sailed, and I went
not without misgivings as to the part that I was playing. Many times
in the walk up the Avenue I turned back, doubting, and then I would
repeat my old-time promise to Penelope and the Professor's injunction
given to me that early morning as we stood together on the street. And
so at last I found myself before the great house, and the grilled door
closed behind me, leaving no retreat.

Mr. Blight was in his "den," resting after his day's golf in a deep
chair by an open window, and he rose from a litter of evening papers to
greet me.

"Well, David, we thought that you had forgotten us," he said.
"Penelope remarked just this morning that it was high time you appeared
to offer your congratulations."

"I have been very busy," I returned. "To-morrow I start abroad for a
year at least, and I came to say good-by and to tell you----"

In my eagerness to have my story over I should have plunged right into
it, but he interrupted me.

"Abroad, eh? Well, we may see you after the wedding. We are all going
over after the wedding."

The calm way in which Mr. Blight spoke of the wedding chilled me. It
was so absolutely settled that there was to be a wedding that in me
there seemed to be embodied that mythical person who is commanded so
sternly to