rgotten. She led the way to his
room.

"Come, Laurie," she said. "I'll just see that everything's all right."

She found the matches again, lighted the candles, and set them on his
table, still without a look at that face that turned always as she
went.

"We shall have to dine alone," she said, striving to make her voice
natural, as she reached the door.

Then once more she raised her eyes to his, and looked him bravely in
the face as he stood by the fire.

"Do just as you like about dressing," she said. "I expect you're
tired."

She could bear it no more. She went out without another word, passed
steadily across the length of the landing to her own room, locked the
door, and threw herself on her knees.

III

She was roused by a tap on the door--how much later she did not
know. But the agony was passed for the present--the repulsion and the
horror of what she had seen. Perhaps it was that she did not yet
understand the whole truth. But at least her will was dominant; she
was as a man who has fought with fear alone, and walks, white and
trembling, yet perfectly himself, to the operating table.

She opened the door; and Susan stood there with a candle in one hand
and a scrap of white in the other.

"For you, miss," said the maid.

Maggie took it without a word, and read the name and the penciled
message twice.

"Just light the lamp out here," she said. "Oh ... and, by the way,
send Charlotte to Mrs. Baxter at once."

"Yes, miss..."

The maid still paused, eyeing her, as if with an unspoken
question. There was terror too in her eyes.

"Mr. Laurie is not very well," said Maggie steadily. "Please take no
notice of anything. And ... and, Susan, I think I shall dine alone
this evening, just a tray up here will do. If Mr. Laurie says
anything, just explain that I am looking after Mrs. Baxter. And....
Susan--"

"Yes, miss."

"Please see that Mrs. Baxter is not told that I am not dining
downstairs."

"Yes, miss."

Maggie still stood an instant, hesitating. Then a thought recurred
again.

"One moment," she said.

She stepped across the room to her writing-table, beckoning the maid
to come inside and shut the door; then she wrote rapidly for a minute
or so, enclosed her note, directed it, and gave it to the girl.

"Just send up someone at once, will you, with this to Father Mahon--on
a bicycle."

When the maid was gone, she waited still for an instant looking across
the dark landing, expectant