look upon life, the point of view of the ideally well-balanced, was
uniformly poiseful and self-contained, and he was wondering if some
fresh entanglement were threatening when she motioned him to a seat and
placed her own chair so that the light from the sitting-room windows
would leave her in the shadow.

"You had my note?" she began.

"Yes. It came while I was away from the hotel, and the regular trip of
the Inn brake was the first conveyance I could catch. Am I late?"

Her reply was qualified. "That remains to be seen."

There was a hesitant pause, and then she went on: "Do you know why I
sent for you to come."

"No, not definitely."

"I was hoping you would know; it would make it easier for me. You owe me
something, Mr. Griswold."

"I owe you a great deal," he admitted, warmly. "It is hardly putting it
too strong to say that you have made some part of my work possible which
would otherwise have been impossible."

"I didn't mean that," she dissented, with a touch of cool scorn. "I have
no especial ambition to figure as a character, however admirable, in a
book. Your obligation doesn't lie in the literary field; it is real--and
personal. You have done me a great injustice, and it seems to have been
carefully premeditated."

The blow was so sudden and so calmly driven home that Griswold gasped.

"An injustice?--to you?" he protested; but she would not let him go on.

"Yes. At first, I thought it was only a coincidence--your coming to
Wahaska--but now I know better. You came here, in goodness knows what
spirit of reckless bravado, because it was my home; and you made the
decision apparently without any consideration for me; without any
thought of the embarrassments and difficulties in which it might involve
me."

Truly, the heavens had fallen and the solid earth was reeling! Griswold
lay back in the deep lounging-chair and fought manfully to retain some
little hold upon the anchorings. Could this be his ideal; the woman whom
he had set so high above all others in the scale of heroic
faultlessness and sublime devotion to principle? And was she so much a
slave of the conventional as to be able to tell him coldly that she had
recognized him again, and that her chief concern was the embarrassment
it was causing her? Before he could gather the words for any adequate
rejoinder, she was going on pointedly:

"You have done everything you could to make the involvement complete.
You have made friends of my friend