is there?' His
second thought: 'Is this the cutting of the knot that I've been looking
for?' His third, which swept all else away: 'My poor little darling!
What business has that boy to hurt her again like this!'

He heard her say:

"Tryst told me himself he did it, Dad! He told me when I went to see him
in the prison. Honour doesn't demand what isn't true! Oh, Dad, help me!"

Felix was slow in getting free from the cross currents of reflection.
"He wrote this last night," he said dismally. "He may have done it
already. We must go and see John."

Nedda clasped her hands. "Ah! Yes!"

And Felix had not the heart to add what he was thinking: 'Not that I
see what good he can do!' But, though sober reason told him this, it was
astonishingly comforting to be going to some one who could be relied on
to see the facts of the situation without any of that 'flimflam' with
which imagination is accustomed to surround them. "And we'll send Derek
a wire for what it's worth."

They went at once to the post-office, Felix composing this message on
the way: 'Utterly mistaken chivalry you have no right await our arrival
Felix Freeland.' He handed it to her to read, and passed it under the
brass railing to the clerk, not without the feeling of shame due from
one who uses the word chivalry in a post-office.

On the way to the Tube station he held her arm tightly, but whether to
impart courage or receive it he could not have said, so strung-up in
spirit did he feel her. With few words exchanged they reached Whitehall.
Marking their card 'Urgent,' they were received within ten minutes.

John was standing in a high, white room, smelling a little of papers
and tobacco, and garnished solely by five green chairs, a table, and a
bureau with an immense number of pigeonholes, whereat he had obviously
been seated. Quick to observe what concerned his little daughter, Felix
noted how her greeting trembled up at her uncle and how a sort of warmth
thawed for the moment the regularity of his brother's face. When they
had taken two of the five green chairs and John was back at his bureau,
Felix handed over the letter. John read it and looked at Nedda. Then
taking a pipe out of his pocket, which he had evidently filled before
they came in, he lighted it and re-read the letter. Then, looking very
straight at Nedda, he said:

"Nothing in it? Honour bright, my dear!"

"No, Uncle John, nothing. Only that he fancies his talk about injustice
put it in