"After this I began to notice a change in him. He was rather silent
and given to reverie; he seldom laughed. Sometimes he was haggard and
so wrought up, apparently, that he could scarcely contain himself. He
would pace the floor, evidently with little realization as to what he
was doing. Once he was really dreadfully agitated. I calmed him as
well as I could, and he sat for a long time, thinking deeply. As I
watched him, he sprang to his feet and dashing his fist upon a table,
cried out, passionately:

"'The black-hearted rascal! He's mocking me!'

"Then like a flash he realized the strangeness of his conduct, and
with anxious, alarmed face, asked my pardon. I felt that this was an
opportunity to put an end to a situation that was growing intolerable.
My persistent questioning gained me something, but, on the whole, not
a great deal.

"The thing that was troubling him was a business matter. In some way
he was in the hands of some one--these are the indefinite threads that
I gathered--a mocking, jeering, smiling someone whom he hated, but
from whom he could not free himself.

"I began to tell him that there could be nothing strong enough in
itself to prevent our happiness; but he stopped me in such a way that
I did not feel inclined to continue. In an outburst, filled with
denunciations of his enemy and protestations of devotion to myself, I
caught the name of Hume. He had dropped this inadvertently. I knew it
instantly because of the swift look that he gave me. But I allowed no
hint of what I thought to show in my face. He was more subdued during