e a
mistress's place when any man should be proud to make her his honored
wife! "The brutal selfishness of men," he said to himself, not blaming
John Derringham in particular. "He ought to have gone off and left her
alone when he felt he was beginning to care, if he had not pluck enough
to stand the racket. But we are all the same--we must have what we want,
and the women must pay--confound us!"

He had never doubted but that, when he read the letter, Halcyone was
already his old pupil's wife--if indeed such a ceremony were legal, she
being under age. And this thought added to his wrath, and he intended to
look the matter up and see. But, before he could do so, he got an
evening paper and read a brief notice that John Derringham had met with
a severe accident--of what exact nature the press association had not
yet learned--and was lying in a critical condition at Wendover Park, the
country seat of the "beautiful American society leader, Mrs. Vincent
Cricklander," with whose name rumor had already connected the
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the most interesting
manner, the paragraph added.

So Fate had stepped in and saved his pure night flower, after all! But
at what sort of price? And Cheiron stared into space with troubled eyes.

He passed hours of anxious thought. He never did anything in a hurry,
and felt that now he must especially consider what would be his wisest
course.

And then, this next morning, Halcyone's letter had come.

It was very simple. It told of Mrs. Anderton's arrival at La Sarthe
Chase and of her own return to London with her--and then the real pith
of it had crept out. Had he heard any news of Mr. Derringham? Because
she had seen his writing upon a letter Mrs. Porrit was readdressing at
the orchard house and, observing it was from London, she presumed he was
there, and she hoped she should see him.

The Professor stopped abruptly here.

"What a woman it is, after all!" he exclaimed. He himself had never
noticed the postmark on John Derringham's envelope! Then he folded
Halcyone's pitiful little communication absently, and thought deeply.

Two things were evident. Firstly, John Derringham had been disabled
before the hour when he should have met his bride; and secondly, she
was, when she wrote, unaware that he had had any accident at all. She
must thus be very unhappy and full of horrible anxiety--his dear little
girl!

But what courage and fortitude she showed, he mus