ession, and hope turned Grizel
giddy.

"Do you love her, David?" she cried.

But he hesitated. "Is what you have told me true, that it would help
you?" he asked, looking her full in the eyes.

"Do you love her?" she implored, but he was determined to have her
answer first.

"Is it, Grizel?"

"Yes, yes. Do you, David?"

And then he admitted that he did, and she rocked her arms in joy.

"But oh, David, to say such things to me when you were not a free man!
How badly you have treated Elspeth to-day!"

"She does not care for me," he said.

"Have you asked her?"--in alarm.

"No; but could she?"

"How could she help it?" She would not tell him what Tommy thought.
Oh, she must do everything to encourage David.

"And still," said he, puzzling, "I don't see how it can affect you."

"And I can't tell you," she moaned. "Oh, David, do, do find out. Why
are you so blind?" She could have shaken him. "Don't you see that once
Elspeth was willing to be taken care of by some other person----I must
not tell you!"

"Then he would marry you?"

She cried in anxiety: "Have I told you, or did you find out?"

"I found out," he said. "Is it possible he is so fond of her as that?"

"There never was such a brother," she answered. She could not help
adding, "But he is still fonder of me."

The doctor pulled his arm over his eyes and sat down again. Presently
he was saying with a long face: "I came here to denounce the cause of
your unhappiness, and I begin to see it is myself."

"Of course it is, you stupid David," she said gleefully. She was very
kind to the man who had been willing to do so much for her; but as the
door closed on him she forgot him. She even ceased to hear the warning
voice he had brought with him from the dead. She was re-reading the
letter that began by calling her wife.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ATTEMPT TO CARRY ELSPETH BY NUMBERS

That was one of Grizel's beautiful days, but there were others to
follow as sweet, if not so exciting; she could travel back through the
long length of them without coming once to a moment when she had held
her breath in sudden fear; and this was so delicious that she
sometimes thought these were the best days of all.

Of course she had little anxieties, but they were nearly all about
David. He was often at Aaron's house now, and what exercised her was
this--that she could not be certain that he was approaching Elspeth in
the right way. The masterful Grizel seemed to h