happen to find out, and it's no secret, would you mind telling me?"

At this point Herr Geist appeared, whereupon Mrs. Tomlinson, with true
feminine tact, changed the subject without waiting for a reply.

During the time I was laid up Mr. Fortescue came into my room almost every
day, but never stayed more than a few minutes. When I expressed my sense
of his kindness and talked about going home, he would smile gravely, and
say:

"Patience! You must be my guest until you have the full use of your limbs
and are able to go about without help."

After this I protested no more, for there was an indescribable something
about Mr. Fortescue which would have made it difficult to contradict him,
even had I been disposed to take so ungrateful and ungracious a part.

At length, after a weary interval of inaction and pain, came a time when I
could get up and move about without discomfort, and one fine frosty day,
which seemed the brightest of my life, Geist and Ramon helped me
down-stairs and led me into a pretty little morning-room, opening into one
of the conservatories, where the plants and flowers had been so arranged
as to look like a sort of tropical forest, in the midst of which was an
aviary filled with parrots, cockatoos, and other birds of brilliant
plumage.

Geist brought me an easy-chair, Ramon a box of cigarettes and the "Times,"
and I was just settling down to a comfortable read and smoke, when Mr.
Fortescue entered from the conservatory. He wore a Norfolk jacket and a
broad-brimmed hat, and his step was so elastic, and his bearing so