as only a mask--the bark, if I may say so.
Beneath it, he has a heart of gold."

"People," began Margaret, avoiding the topic, "always seek their own
level, just as water does. That is why there is class."

"But for a long time, they do not find it," objected the Doctor. "Miss
Iris, for instance. Her people were of the common sort, and those with
whom she lived afterward were worse still. She"--by the unconscious
reverence in his voice, they knew whom he meant--"she taught her all the
fineness she has, and that is much. It is an argument for environment,
rather than heredity."

Lynn left the room abruptly, unable to bear the talk of Iris.

"I wish," said the Doctor, at length, "I wish you knew Herr Kaufmann.
Would you like it if I should bring him to call?"

"No!" cried Margaret. "It is too soon," she added, desperately. "Too
soon after----"

The Doctor nodded. "I understand," he said. "It was a mistake on my
part, for which you must pardon me. I only thought you might be a help
to each other. Franz, too, has sorrowed."

"Has he?" asked Margaret, her lips barely moving.

"Yes," the Doctor went on, half to himself, "it was an unhappy love
affair. The young lady's mother parted them because he lived in West
Lancaster, though he, too, might have had letters from high places in
Germany. He and I made the same mistake."

"Her mother," repeated Margaret, almost in a whisper.

"Yes, the young lady herself cared."

"And he," she breathed, leaning eagerly forward, her body tense,--"does
he love her still?"

"He loves her still," returned the Doctor, promptly, "and even more than
then."

"Ah--h!"

The Doctor roused himself. "What have I done!" he cried, in genuine
distress. "I have violated my friend's confidence, unthinking! My
friend, for whom I would make any sacrifice--I have betrayed him!"

"No," replied Margaret, with a great effort at self-control. "You have
not told me her name."

"It is because I do not know it," said the Doctor, ruefully. "If I had
known, I should have bleated it out, fool that I am!"

"Please do not be troubled--you have done no harm. Herr Kaufmann and I
are practically strangers."

"That is so," replied the Doctor, evidently reassured; "and I did not
mean it. It is not the same thing as if I had done it purposely."

"Not at all the same thing."

At times, we put something aside in memory to be meditated upon later.
The mind registers the exact words, the train of circumstance