hem or not. In fact, I know nothing whatever
about them."

"It sounds horrid and ungracious, Hilary, after all you've done for me,"
said Doria, "but I really think you ought to know something."

From her point of view, and from any outside person's point of view, she
was perfectly right. My bland ignorance was disgraceful. If she had
brought an action against us for recovery of these wretched manuscripts
and we managed to keep the essential secret, both counsel and judge
would have flayed me alive. . . . Put yourself in her place for a
minute--God knows I tried to do so hard enough--and you will see the
logic of her position, all through. She was not a woman of broad human
sympathies and generous outlook; she was intense and narrow. Her whole
being had been concentrated on Adrian during their brief married life;
it was concentrated now on his memory. To her, as to all the world, he
flamed a dazzling meteor. Her faults, which were many and hard to bear
with, all sprang from the bigotry of love. Nothing had happened to cloud
her faith. She had come up against many incomprehensible things: the
delay in publication of Adrian's book; the change of title; the burning
of Adrian's last written words on the blotting pad; the vivid pictures
that were obviously not Adrian's; the consignment to a printer's Limbo
of the original manuscripts; my own placid disassociation from the
literary side of the executorship. She had accepted them--not without
protest; but she had in fact accepted them. Now she struck a reef of
things more incomprehensible still. Jaffery had lied to her
outrageously. I, for one, hold her justified in her indignation.

But what on earth could I do? What on earth could my poor Barbara do? We
sat, both of us, racking our brains for some fantastic invention, while
Doria, like a diminutive tragedy queen, walked about my library,
inveighing against Jaffery and crying for her manuscripts. And I dared
not know anything at all about them. She had every reason to reproach
me.

Barbara, feeling very uncomfortable, said: "You mustn't blame Hilary.
When Adrian died each of the executors took charge of a special
department. Jaffery Chayne did not interfere with Hilary's management of
financial affairs, and Hilary left Jaffery free with the literary side
of things. It has worked very well. This silly muddle about the
manuscripts doesn't matter a little bit."

"But it does matter," cried Doria.

And it did. Now that she