reached Marseilles. This is how it was."

She told him of the tail of the little china dog, and of her talk with
Septimus the night before.

"So I came to you," she concluded, "as soon as I decently could, this
morning."

"And I owe you to Septimus," he said.

"Ah, I know! You ought to have owed me to yourself," she cried,
misunderstanding him. "If I had known things were so terrible with you I
would have come. I would, really. But I was misled by your letters. They
were so hopeful. Don't reproach me."

"Reproach you! You who have given this crazy fellow so much! You who come
to me all sweetness and graciousness, with heaven in your eyes, after
having been dragged across Europe and made to sacrifice your winter of
sunshine, just for my sake! Ah, no! It's myself that I reproach."

"For what?" she asked.

"For being a fool, a crazy, blatant, self-centered fool My God!" he
exclaimed, smiting the arm of his chair as a new view of things suddenly
occurred to him. "How can you sit there--how have you suffered me these two
years--without despising me? How is it that I haven't been the mock and
byword of Europe? I must have been!"

He rose and walked about the room in great agitation.

"These things have all come crowding up together. One can't realize
everything at once. 'Clem Sypher, Friend of Humanity!' How they must have
jeered behind my back if they thought me sincere! How they must have
despised me if they thought me nothing but an advertising quack! Zora
Middlemist, for heaven's sake tell me what you have thought of me. What
have you taken me for--a madman or a charlatan?"

"It is you that must tell me what has happened," said Zora earnestly. "I
don't know. Septimus gave me to understand that the Cure had failed. He's
never clear about anything in his own mind, and he's worse when he tries to
explain it to others."

"Septimus," said Sypher, "is one of the children of God."

"But he's a little bit incoherent on earth," she rejoined, with a smile.
"What has really happened?"

Sypher drew a long breath and pulled himself up.

"I'm on the verge of a collapse. The Cure hasn't paid for the last two
years. I hoped against hope. I flung thousands and thousands into the
concern. The Jebusa Jones people and others out-advertised me,
out-manoeuvered me at every turn. Now every bit of capital is gone, and I
can't raise any more. I must go under."

Zora began, "I have a fairly large fortune--"

He checked her wit