Then Tavernake for the first time laughed--a laugh that sounded even
natural.

"Have you ever found a man who could do that?" he asked. "The candle
gives a good light sometimes, but you'll never think it the finest
illumination in the world when you've seen the sun. Never mind me,
Pritchard. I'm going to do my best still, but there's one thing that
nothing will alter. I am going to make that woman tell me her story, I
am going to listen to the way she tells it to me. You think that where
women are concerned I am a fool. I am, but there is one great boon which
has been vouchsafed to fools--they can tell the true from the false.
Some sort of instinct, I suppose. Elizabeth shall tell me her story and
I shall know, when she tells it, whether she is what you say or what she
has seemed to me."

Pritchard held out his hand.

"You're a queer sort, Tavernake," he declared. "You take life plaguy
seriously. I only hope you 'll get all out of it you expect to. So
long!"

Tavernake opened the window after his visitor had gone, and leaned out
for some few minutes, letting the fresh air into the close, stifling
room. Then he went upstairs, bathed and changed his clothes, made
some pretense at breakfast, went through his letters with methodical
exactness. At eleven o'clock he set out upon his pilgrimage.

CHAPTER XXVII. TAVERNAKE CHOOSES

Tavernake was kept waiting in the hall of the Milan Court for at least
half an hour before Elizabeth was prepared to see him. He wandered
aimlessly about watching the people come and go, looking out into the
flower-hung courtyard, curiously unconscious of himself and of his
errand, unable to concentrate his thoughts for a moment, yet filled all
the time with the dull and uneasy sensation of one who moves in a dream.
Every now and then he heard scraps of conversation from the servants and
passers-by, referring to the last night's incident. He picked up a paper
but threw it down after only a casual glance at the paragraph. He saw
enough to convince him that for the present, at any rate, Elizabeth
seemed assured of a certain amount of sympathy. The career of poor
Wenham Gardner was set down in black and white, with little extenuation,
little mercy. His misdeeds in Paris, his career in New York, spoke for
themselves. He was quoted as a type, a decadent of the most debauched
instincts, to whom crime was a relaxation and vice a habit. Tavernake
would read no more. He might have been all thes