d him talk like that, though,
often. To me it sounds like the waves beating upon the shores. They
may rage as furiously, or ripple as softly as the tides can bring
them,--it makes no difference ... I want you to go on, please. I
want you to finish telling me--your news."

Arnold looked away from the closed door. He looked back again into
the girl's face. There was still that appearance of strained
attention about her mouth and eyes.

"You are right," he admitted. "These things, after all, are terrible
enough, but they are like the edge of a storm from which one has
found shelter. Isaac ought to realize it."

"Tell me what this is which has happened to you!" she begged.

He shook himself free from that cloud of memories. He gave himself
up instead to the joy of telling her his good news.

"Listen, then," he said. "Mr. Weatherley, in consideration not
altogether, I am afraid, of my clerklike abilities, but of my
shoulders and muscle, has appointed me his private secretary, with a
seat in his office and a salary of three pounds a week. Think of it,
Ruth! Three pounds a week!"

A smile lightened her face for a moment as she squeezed his fingers.

"But why?" she asked. "What do you mean about your shoulders and
your muscle?"

"It is all very mysterious," he declared, "but do you know I believe
Mr. Weatherley is afraid. He shook like a leaf when I told him of
the murder of Rosario. I believe he thinks that there was some sort
of blackmailing plot and he is afraid that something of the kind
might happen to him. My instructions are never to leave his office,
especially if he is visited by any strangers."

"It sounds absurd," she remarked. "I should have thought that of all
the commonplace, unimaginative people you have ever described to me,
Mr. Weatherley was supreme."

"And I," Arnold agreed. "And so, in a way, he is. It is his
marriage which seems to have transformed him--I feel sure of that.
He is mixing now with people whose manners and ways of thinking are
entirely strange to him. He has had the world he knew of kicked from
beneath his feet, and is hanging on instead to the fringe of
another, of which he knows very little."

Ruth was silent. All the time Arnold was conscious that she was
watching him. He turned his head. Her mouth was once more set and
strained, a delicate streak of scarlet upon the pallor of her face,
but from the fierce questioning of her eyes there was no escape.

"What is it you want to