nk himself into a daze, and so got a few hours
of a kind of sleep. He was looking haggard and wild now, and everyone
avoided him, though in fact there was not the least danger of an
outburst of temper. His sister--Josephine--the office--several clients
telephoned for him. To all he sent the same refusal--that he was too ill
to see anyone. Not until the third day after the funeral did Dorothy
telephone for him.

He took an ice-cold bath, got himself together as well as he could, and
reached the house in Jersey City about half past three in the afternoon.
She came gliding into the room like a ghost, trailing a black negligee
that made the whiteness of her skin startling. Her eyelids were heavy
and dark, but unreddened. She gazed at him with calm, clear melancholy,
and his heart throbbed and ached for her. She seated herself, clasped
her hands loosely in her lap, and said:

"I've sent for you so that I could settle things up."

"Your father's affairs? Can't I do it better?"

"He had arranged everything. There are only the papers--his notes--and
he wrote out the addresses of the men they were to be sent to. No, I
mean settle things up with you."

"You mustn't bother about that," said he. "Besides, there's nothing to
settle."

"I shan't pretend I'm going to try to pay you back," she went on, as if
he had not spoken. "I never could do it. But you will get part at least
by selling this furniture and the things at the laboratory."

"Dorothy--please," he implored. "Don't you understand you're to stay on
here, just the same? What sort of man do you think I am? I did this for
you, and you know it."

"But I did it for my father," replied she, "and he's gone." She was
resting her melancholy gaze upon him. "I couldn't take anything from
you. You didn't think I was that kind?"

He was silent.

"I cared nothing about the scandal--what people said--so long as I was
doing it for him. . . . I'd have done _anything_ for him. Sometimes I
thought you were going to compel me to do things I'd have hated to do. I
hope I wronged you, but I feared you meant that." She sat thinking
several minutes, sighed wearily. "It's all over now. It doesn't matter.
I needn't bother about it any more."

"Dorothy, let's not talk of these things now," said Norman. "There's no
hurry. I want you to wait until you are calm and have thought everything
over. Then I'm sure you'll see that you ought to stay on."

"How could I?" she asked wonderingly.

"