," she asked, after a moment's wait, "aren't you going to say
anything to me even now?"

John tried his best to smile. It was a poor attempt.

"Why, yes," he said slowly, "I came all the way from Boston to see
you and talk to you, Gertie. There is no reason why I shouldn't
say--whatever there is to say, I suppose."

Gertrude looked at him. The tone in which this speech was delivered,
and the speech itself--the first part of it, especially--amazed and
hurt her. Incidentally, her temper having been sorely tried already that
evening by Mr. Hungerford, it made her angry.

"All the way from Boston," she repeated. "Well, I never knew you to
complain in that way before. I'm sorry to have caused you so much
trouble."

"It wasn't a trouble, Gertie. You know I would go around the world for
you."

"Then why speak of coming all the way from Boston? Whose fault was it,
pray? Did I ask you to come?"

And now, John, who had been fighting his own temper for some time, grew
angry.

"You did not," he declared. "But I judge it was time I did."

"Indeed! Indeed! Why?"

"Well--well, for various reasons. Of course, had I known my coming would
interfere with your--your precious Chapter affairs and--"

"John, I had to go to that meeting. If you had written you were coming
I shouldn't have gone. I should have made other arrangements. But you
didn't write."

"I wrote every day."

"Yes, but you did not write you were coming here."

"I didn't think it was necessary. You wrote every day, too, but you
didn't write--you didn't write--"

"What?"

"A good many things that--that I have learned since I came here."

"Indeed! What things? How did you learn them?"

"I--" John hesitated. To bring Captain Dan's name into the conversation
would be, he felt, disloyal. And it would surely mean trouble for the
captain. "I--I learned them with my own eyes," he declared. "I could
see. Gertie, I can't understand you."

"And I don't understand you. I told you, at the only moment we have had
together, I told you then that I would explain about the Chapter. I said
that I must go or everything would be spoiled. You very nearly spoiled
it by coming as you did."

Mr. Doane's expression changed. It had softened when she reminded him
of the whispered word in the drawing-room. The last sentence, however,
brought his frown back again.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Well--humph! that's easily remedied. I came in a
hurry and I can go the same way."

"Joh