WITH his letter in his hand Dennis Vidal stood and smiled at her. “ What in the world has your dear Tony ‘got,’ and what is he to say? ”

“To say? Something to his wife, who appears to have lashed herself into an extraordinary state.”

The young man’s face fell. “What sort of a state?”

“A strange discouragement about herself. She’s depressed and frightened she thinks she’s sinking.”

Dennis looked grave. “ Poor little lady what a bore for us! I remember her perfectly.”

“She of course remembers you,” Rose said. “ She takes the friendliest interest in your being here.”

“That’s most kind of her in her condition.”

“Oh, her condition,” Rose returned, “ isn’t quite so bad as she thinks.”

“I see.” Dennis hesitated. “And that’s what Mr. Bream’s to tell her.”

“That’s a part of it.” Rose glanced at the docu ment he had brought to her; it was in its enve lope, and he tapped it a little impatiently on his left finger-tips. What she said, however, had no reference to it. “ She’s haunted with a morbid alarm on the subject, of all things, of his marry ing again.”

“If she should die? She wants him not to? ” Dennis asked.

“She wants him not to.” Rose paused a moment. “ She wants to have been the only one.”

He reflected, slightly embarrassed with this peep into a situation that but remotely concerned him. “Well, I suppose that’s the way women often feel.”

“I daresay it is.” The girl’s gravity gave the gleam of a smile. “ I daresay it’s the way I should.”

Dennis Vidal, at this, simply seized her and kissed her. “ You needn’t be afraid you’ll be the only one! ”

His embrace had been the work of a few seconds, and she had made no movement to escape from it; but she looked at him as if to convey that the extreme high spirits it betrayed were perhaps just a trifle mistimed. “ That’s what I recommended him,” she dropped, “ to say to Julia.”

“Why, I should hope so! ” Presently, as if a little struck, Dennis continued: “ Doesn’t he want to?”

“Absolutely. They’re all in all to each other. But he’s naturally much upset and bewildered.”

“And he came to you for advice? ”

“Oh, he comes to me,” Rose said, “ as he might come to talk of her with the mother that, poor dar ling, it’s her misfortune never to have known,”

The young man’s vivacity again played up. “He treats you, you mean, as his mother-in-law? ”

“Very much. But I’m thoroughly nice to him. People can do anything to me who are nice to Julia.”

Dennis was silent a moment; he had slipped his letter out of its cover. “Well, I hope they’re grateful to you for such devotion.”

“Grateful to me, Dennis? They quite adore me.” Then as if to remind him of something it was important he should feel: “ Don’t you see what it is for a poor girl to have such an anchorage as this such honourable countenance, such a place to fall back upon? ”

Thus challenged, her visitor, with a moment’s thought, did frank justice to her question. “ I’m certainly glad you’ve such jolly friends one sees they’re charming people. It has been a great comfort to me lately to know you were with them.” He looked round him, conscientiously, at the bright and beautiful hall. “ It is a good berth, my dear, and it must be a pleasure to live with such fine things. They’ve given me a room up there that’s full of them an awfully nice room.” He glanced at a picture or two he took in the scene. “ Do they roll in wealth? ”

“They’re like all bankers, I imagine,” said Rose. “Don............