is table for fully
half an hour looking straight in front of him. When at last he spoke,
it was to enquire of Dorothy if she liked men in uniform.

That afternoon he worked with unflagging industry. It seemed to
Dorothy that he was deliberately calling to mind every little detail
that had for some reason or other temporarily been put aside. He
seemed to be determined to leave no loose ends. Such matters as he was
unable to clear up himself, he gave elaborate instructions to Dorothy
that would enable her to act without reference to him. At half-past
five, after a final glance round the room, he leaned back in his chair.

"I shall sleep some to-night," he remarked.

"Don't you always sleep?" enquired Dorothy.

"I sleep better when there are no loose ends tickling my brain," was
the reply.

As Dorothy left the office a few minutes after six he called her back.

"If I've forgotten anything you'd best remind me."

"Mother," she remarked, when she got home that evening, "John Dene's
the funniest man in all the world."

"Is he, dear?" said Mrs. West non-committally.

Dorothy nodded her head with decision. "He wastes an awful lot of
time, and then he hustles like--like--well, you know."

"How do you mean, dear?" queried Mrs. West.

"Well, he'll sit sometimes for an hour looking at nothing. It's not
complimentary when I'm there," she added.

"Perhaps he's thinking," suggested Mrs. West.

"Oh, no!" Dorothy shook her head with decision. "He thinks while he's
eating. You can see him do it. That's why he thinks salmon is pink
cod. No; John Dene is a very remarkable man; but he'd be very trying
as a husband."

Dorothy spoke lightly; but during the last few days she had been asking
herself what she would do when John Dene was gone. Sometimes she would
sit and ponder over it, then with a movement of impatience she would
plunge once more into her work. What was John Dene to her that she
should miss him? He was just her employer, and in a few months he
would go back to Canada, and she would never see him again. One
morning she awakened crying from a dream in which John Dene had just
said good-day to her and stepped on a large steamer labelled "To
Canada." That day she was almost brusque in her manner, so much so
that John Dene had asked her if she were not well.

The next morning when Dorothy arrived at the office, she found John
Dene sitting at his table. As she entered, he looked round, stared at
he