is a silly thing, and I have always regretted allowing the
man to publish it. He certainly called upon me and asked me a lot of
questions, after which he went away and wrote that article. Ever since
then I have felt like a conceited ass, who tried to make himself out
more clever than he really was."

"I don't think you would do that," she said. "But, if you will let me
say so, yours must be a very trying life, and also an extremely
dangerous one. I am afraid you must look upon human nature from a very
strange point of view!"

"Not more strange probably than you do," I answered.

"But you are continually seeing the saddest side of it. To you all the
miseries that a life of crime entails, are visible. The greater part of
your time is spent among desperate men who are without hope, and to whom
even their own shadows are a constant menace. I wonder that you still
manage to retain your kind heart."

"But how do you know that my heart is kind?" I inquired.

"If for no other reason, simply because you have taken up my uncle's
case," she answered. "Do you think when he was so rude to you just now,
that I could not see that you pitied him, and for that reason you
forbore to take advantage of your power? I know you have a kind heart."

"And you find it difficult to assimilate that kind heart with the
remorseless detective of Public Life?"

"I find it difficult to recognize in you the man who, on a certain
notable occasion, went into a thieves' den in Chicago unaccompanied, and
after a terrible struggle in which you nearly lost your life, succeeded
in effecting the arrest of a notorious murderer."

At that moment the gong in the hall sounded for lunch, and I was by no
means sorry for the interruption. We found Kitwater and Codd awaiting
our coming in the dining-room, and we thereupon sat down to the meal.
When we left the room again, we sat in the garden and smoked, and later
in the afternoon, my hostess conducted me over her estate, showed me her
vineries, introduced me to her two sleek Jerseys, who had their home in
the meadow I had seen from the window; to her poultry, pigs, and the
pigeons who came fluttering about her, confident that they would come to
no harm. Meanwhile her uncle had resumed his restless pacing up and down
the path on which I had first seen him, Codd had returned to his
archaeological studies, and I was alone with Miss Kitwater. We were
standing alone together, I remember, at the gate that separated