d he was quiet for so
long a time that she thought he had fallen asleep. But he had not.

"You're thinking something of the writer-man, lassie? Don't mind the
clavers of an auld man who never had a chick or child of his ain."

Her answer was such as a child might have made. She lifted the
big-jointed hand on the coverlet and pressed it softly to her flushed
cheek, and he understood.

"I thought so; I was afraid so," he said, slowly. "You say you have
known him a long time: it canna have been long enough, bairnie."

"But it is," she insisted, loyally. "I know him better than he knows
himself; oh, very much better."

"Ye know the good in him, maybe; there's good in all men, I'm thinking
now, though there was a time when I didna believe it."

"I know the good and the bad--and the bad is only the good turned upside
down."

Again the sick man wagged his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

"Ye're a loving lassie, Maggie, and that's a' there is to it," he
commented; and after another interval: "What must be, must be. We spoke
of this man Broffin: I must see him before Johnson comes. Can ye get him
for me, Maggie, child?"

She nodded and went down-stairs to the telephone, returning almost
immediately.

"I was fortunate enough to catch him at the hotel. He will be here in a
few minutes," was the word she brought; and Galbraith thanked her with
his eyes.

"When he comes, ye'll let me see him alone--just for a few minutes," he
begged; and beyond that he said no more.

It was after the click of the gate latch had announced Broffin's arrival
that Margery drew the shades to shut out the glare of the afternoon sun,
lowering the one at the bed's head so that the light no longer fell upon
the instruments of the small house-telephone-set mounted upon the wall
beside the door.

"Mr. Broffin is here, and I'll send him up," she said. "But you mustn't
let him stay long, and you mustn't try to talk too much."

The sick man promised, and as she was going away she turned to repeat
the caution. Andrew Galbraith's eyes were closed in weariness, and he
did not see that she was standing with her back to the wall while she
admonished him, or that, when she had gone to send the visitor up, the
ear-piece of the house-telephone-set had been detached from its hook and
left dangling by its wire cord.

Miss Grierson went on into the library after she had met the detective
at the door and had told him how to find the up stairs room.