bout this.
I'll not depend on it. If I go back to Bellevale, I must have at hand at
all times the means of connecting things as I find them with the life of
this Brassfield. I must take with me the bridge which spans the chasm
between Brassfield and Amidon--I mean our friend Clara. Without her, I
shall never go back. I haven't the nerve. I should soon find myself in
a tangle of mistakes from which I could never extricate myself--I've
thought it all out. The Cretan Labyrinth would be like going home from
school, in comparison."

"Pshaw!" said the judge, looking lovingly at Blodgett's _Notes on the
Compiled Statements of Brassfield_, "you could feel your way along very
well--with these."

"Would you go into the trial of a case," said Florian, "no matter how
simple, in which not only your own future, but the happiness of others,
might be involved, without even a speaking acquaintance with any of the
parties, or one of the witnesses? I tell you, Judge, we must have Madame
le Claire."

The judge rolled up the notes and snapped a rubber band about the roll.
He said no more until evening.

"Then," said he, as if he had only just made up his mind to concede the
point, "let's see if it can be arranged at once. Come over to the
Blatherwicks' with me."

"I think," said Amidon slowly, "that I'll see her alone."

"Alone, yes--yes!" said the judge, changing an interjection into an
assent. "By all means; by all means. Only don't you think there may be
things down there needing attention, Florian--money matters--and--and
other things, you know, my boy--and that we ought to be moving in the
matter? I would respectfully urge," he concluded, using his orator's
chest-tones to drown Amidon's protest against his joking, "that no time
be lost in deciding on our course."

The judge had noted the increasing dependence of his client on the fair
hypnotist, and the growing interest that she seemed to feel in him, and
therefore showed some coolness toward the proposal to take her to
Bellevale. The eyes inured to the perusal of dusty commentaries and
reports were still sharp enough to see the mutual tenderness exchanged in
the unwavering, eye-to-eye encounters whereby Amidon was converted into
Brassfield, and to note the softness of the feline strokings by which
Florian's catalepsy was induced or dispelled. He rather favored dropping
the Blatherwick acquaintance: but he could not answer Amidon's arguments
as to their need for i