please listen very carefully--tell her this. That I am not there
because I dared not come. Yes; on her account. She will understand.
My heart--it's my heart. She will understand. I did not dare. For her
sake, not mine. Tell her that. She will understand. Please be very
careful in repeating the message, Miss Niles. Tell her I dared not
come because of my heart.... Yes; thank you. That's it.... What? Yes,
I will wait, Miss Niles."

Adrian, sitting in the library, suddenly got to his feet and crossed
to the empty fireplace and stood with his back to it, enlightenment
and a puzzled frown struggling for possession of his face. His
uncle's heart! Ah, he understood, then! It was discretion, after all,
but not the kind he thought--a much more forgiveable discretion. And,
yet, what possible difference could it make should his uncle die
suddenly in Mrs. Denby's house? Fall dead across her bed, or die
kneeling beside it? Poor, twisted old fool, afraid even at the end
that death might catch him out; afraid of a final undignified gesture.

A motor blew its horn for the street crossing. Another girl laughed;
a young, thin, excited girl, to judge by her laughter. The curtains
stirred and again there was that underlying scent of tulips and
hyacinths; and then, from the hall outside, came the muffled thud of
a receiver falling to the floor. Adrian waited. The receiver was not
picked up. He strode to the door. Crumpled up over the telephone was
old Mr. McCain.

Cecil came later. She was very quick and helpful, and jealously
solicitous on Adrian's account, but in the taxicab going home she
said the one thing Adrian had hoped she wouldn't say, and yet was
sure she would. She belonged to a sex which, if it is honest at all,