brevity of her questions, and expressed her
satisfaction with everything that had been done. When she came down to
the dining-room for luncheon she avoided all reference to the sick man.
In her way she was as remarkable as the Governor himself. Her arrival
had greatly stirred Mrs. Leary, who, deprived of Sally's services,
served the table. Archie was struck by the fact that with only the
exchange of commonplace remarks the two women, born into utterly
different worlds, seemed to understand each other perfectly. He had
merely told Mrs. Leary that the Governor's sister was coming and warned
her against letting fall any hint of her knowledge of his ways.

"I've never been in these parts before," Julia remarked to Archie; "I
should be glad if you'd show me the beach. We might take a walk a little
later."

The hour in which he waited for her tried his soul. The Governor was the
one man who had ever roused in him a deep affection, and the dread of
finding that under his flippancy, his half-earnest, half-boyish
make-believe devotion to the folk of the underworld, he was really an
irredeemable rogue, tortured him. These were disloyal thoughts; he hated
himself for his doubts. It was impossible that a man of the Governor's
blood, his vigor of mind and oddly manifested chivalry could ever have
been more than a trifler with iniquity.

"I'm going to ask you to bear with me," said Mrs. Graybill when they
reached the shore, "if I seem to be making this as easy for myself as
possible. I know that my brother cares a great deal for you. He sent me
little notes now and then--he always did that, though the intervals were
sometimes long; I know that he would want you to know. Things have
reached a point where if he lives he will tell you himself."

"Please don't think I have any feeling that I have any right to know.
It's very generous of you to want to tell me. But first it's only fair
to give you a few particulars about myself. You said in New York that
you knew me and I must apologize for my failure to recall our meeting."

"It was fortunate you didn't! I've known some of your family, I think;
your sister is Mrs. Howard Featherstone. Away back somewhere the Van
Dorens and a Bennett owned some property jointly. It may have been an
uncle of yours?"

"Yes; Archibald Bennett, for whom I was named."

"That's very odd; but it saves explanations. We are not meeting quite as
strangers."

"I felt that the moment I saw the name Van Doren