that.
You'll see her to-night."

Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, "You are in love with her,
Baron. Isn't it--forgive me--isn't it a pretty mad handicap?"

Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up,
laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: "Handicap, my
son, handicap? Of course, it's all handicap. But what difference does that
make when it strikes you? You can't help it, can you? It's like loading
yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it
just the same."

He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar's
shoulder. It was now Hagar's turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as
Baron had wrung his in the morning. "You're a brick, Baron," he said.

"I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs.
Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the
angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh?--a
woman like her, eh?"

To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to
speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to
another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: "But maybe this is of
more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won't ask you to
read it. I'll tell you what's in it. But, first, it's supposed, isn't it,
that her husband was drowned?"

"Yes, off the coast of Madagascar. But it was never known beyond doubt.
The vessel was wrecked and it was said all hands but two sailors were
lost."

"Exactly. But my old friend Meneely writes me from Zanzibar telling me of
a man who got into trouble with Arabs in the interior--there was a woman
in it--and was shot but not killed. Meneely brought him to the coast, and
put him into a hospital, and said he was going to ship him to England
right away, though he thinks he can't live. Meneely further remarks that
the man is a bounder. And his name is Fairfax Detlor. Was that her
husband's name?"

Hagar had had a blow. Everything seemed to come at once--happiness and
defeat all in a moment. There was grim irony in it. "Yes, that was the
name," he said. "Will you leave the telling to me?"

"That's what I came for. You'll do it as it ought to be done; I couldn't."

"All right, Baron."

Hagar leaned against the mantel, outwardly unmoved, save for a numb kind
of expression. Baron came awkwardly to him and spoke with a stumbling kind
of frie