son's manner! Of course she and Nigel were in correspondence.
Isaacson remembered the occasional notes almost of triumph in her
demeanour. She had had letters from Nigel during his absence from
London. His letters--the hope in her face. Isaacson saw her on the
balcony looking out over the river. Had she not looked out as the human
soul looks out upon a prospect of release? In the remembrance of them
her expression and her attitude became charged with more definite
meaning. And he surely grasped that meaning, which he had wondered about
before.

Yet Nigel said nothing. And all this time he had been away from Mrs.
Chepstow. Such an absence was strange, and seemed unlike him, quite
foreign to his enthusiastic temperament, if Isaacson's surmise was
correct. But perhaps it was not correct. That well-spring of human
kindness which bubbled up in Nigel, might it not, perhaps, deceive?

"Feeling is woman's knowledge." Isaacson had said that. Now mentally he
added, "And sometimes it is man's." He felt too much about Nigel, but
he strove to put his feeling away.

Presently he would know. Till then it was useless to debate. And he had
very much to do.

Not till nearly the end of October did Nigel return to London. The
leaves were falling in battalions from the trees. The autumn winds had
come, and with them the autumn rain, that washes sadly away the last
sweet traces of summer. Everywhere, through country and town, brooded
that grievous atmosphere of finale which in England seldom or never
fails to cloud the waning year.

The depression that is characteristic of this season sent many people to
doctors. Day after day Isaacson sat in his consulting-room, prescribing
rather for the minds of men than for their bodies, living rather with
their misunderstood souls than with their physical symptoms. And this
year his patients reacted on him far more than usual. He felt almost as
if by removing he received their ills, as if their apprehensions were
communicated to his mind, as germs are communicated to the body, and as
if they stayed to do evil. He told himself that his holiday had not
rested him enough. But he never thought for a moment of diminishing his
work. Success swept him ever onward to more exertion. As his power grew,
his appetite for it grew. And he enjoyed his increasing fortune.

At last Nigel rang at his door. Isaacson could not see him, but sent out
word to make an appointment for the evening. They were to meet at eig