"

"She says the car was going fast, but as it passed her she could see
inside very plainly, and the nurse was sitting quite close to the
Captain, with her head resting on his shoulder. That's all, sir, and
it's not the kind of thing I care to repeat, though of course there may
be nothing in it, sir."

"No, certainly not, Chalmers, nor does it explain what I'm trying to
find out. Thank you."

He had preserved an indifferent air, but what the butler had told him
was in the nature of a great shock. He felt suddenly quite sick with
disillusionment. Had he been a fool all along, completely wrong in his
estimate of this girl? Was she simply like so many others, possessed
of two sides, one which she kept for him, and the other, perhaps, not
quite so restrained? But for this story he would not have believed it
possible.... After all, why attach so much importance to the tale of
an idle servant? What if she had made a mistake, what if she had
invented it out of mischief? Surely he knew Esther too well to be
deceived in her. Impatiently he strove to thrust the suspicion aside.

Yet in his unhappy brain, buzzing now with fever, a voice sardonically
demanded, "What man ever does really know a girl?" Particularly--he
winced at the thought--what man who has money? Isn't it a common
sight, that of a woman making herself attractive to a man because of
what he can give her, while all the time she is secretly drawn towards
someone else? For that matter Esther herself had admitted to him that
she found Holliday attractive. Then what about that occasion, a
trifling incident enough, when he had come upon the two of them
standing so close together, gazing into each other's eyes? He had
thought at the time that the moment held at least the germ of a
flirtation. Why should Esther be immune from suspicion? Wasn't it
possible that from the beginning she had cherished a hidden penchant
for the callous Arthur? She would not be the first victim by a long
shot.

Yet--Esther! He could picture her now, her clear, frank eyes looking
straight into his with an expression of boyish simplicity. How could
one suspect her? Surely she was incapable of intrigue; why, he had
believed in her so! She was the one girl he felt he wanted for his
wife, if she would have him. Only a little North Country streak of
caution had held him back from asking her the actual question--or at
least it was partly due to caution and partly to the circu