een before.
I introduced them, and for the first time I became aware of what Gaby
Lorraine could be when she wished intensely to charm a man. She radiated
some subtle attraction of sex--deliberately radiated it, and without one
spoken word. She hadn't tried that "stunt" on my Jim, and if she had on
Ralston Murray I hadn't been there to see. There was something she
wanted to get out of Sir Beverley!

CHAPTER IX

THE GOOD NEWS

I thought I knew what that "something" was. I thought that Gaby wished
to "tame" Sir Beverley, and make him so much her slave that he would
appoint Paul to understudy him with Murray. I chuckled as I "deduced"
this ambition, for poor Gaby was in blissful ignorance of a certain
conversation I'd had with Sir Beverley.

"She'll find him a hard nut to crack," I said to myself. Still, I
suffered some bad moments in the month that followed. The Jenningses
were as often at the Manor as we were, and Gaby came frequently alone,
seldom failing to see Sir Beverley. He did seem to admire her, and to
like Paul well enough to worry me.

"Will he stick to his point about his own doctor?" I wondered. But when
the time came to prove his strength of mind, he did stick.

When he had been at Ralston Old Manor four weeks and two days there was
a letter for me from him in my morning post at the Abbey. "I want you to
come along as soon as you can and break something to Mrs. Murray," he
wrote. "I think she would rather hear it from you than me."

I hardly waited to finish breakfast; but I was more excited than
frightened. If the news had been bad, I thought that Sir Beverley was
the man to have told it straight out. If it were good, he wouldn't mind
tantalizing me a little.

Sir Beverley was walking under the elms, his hands behind his back,
taking his early stroll, when my car drove up. I got out at once and
joined him.

"The man's going to get well--_well_, I tell you!" he joyously
announced. "No dreary semi-invalid for a devoted wife to take care of,
but a man in the prime of life, for a woman to adore. I'm sure of it."

"But how wonderful!" I cried, ecstatically squeezing his arm. "What a
triumph, after dozens of great doctors had given him up! Does he know
yet?"

Sir Beverley shook his head. "I'm going to tell him this morning. I
wanted to wait till Mrs. Murray had been told."

"Why on earth didn't you tell her yourself--tell them both together?" I
asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I o