I'm certain now."

David nodded. "Go on."

"We'll start like this. God knows I don't want to make any trouble.
But I'll put a hypothetical case. Suppose that a man when drunk
commits a crime and then disappears; suppose he leaves behind him
a bad record and an enormous fortune; suppose then he reforms and
becomes a useful citizen, and everything is buried."

Doctor David listened stonily. Gregory lowered his voice.

"Suppose there's a woman mixed up in that situation. Not guiltily,
but there's a lot of talk. And suppose she lives it down, for ten
years, and then goes back to her profession, in a play the families
take the children to see, and makes good. It isn't hard to suppose
that neither of those two people wants the thing revived, is it?"

David cleared his throat.

"You mean, then, that there is danger of such a revival?"

"I think there is," Gregory said bitterly. "I recognized this man
last night, and called a fellow who knew him in the old days,
Saunders, our stage manager. And a newspaper man named Bassett
wormed it out of Saunders. You know what that means."

David heard him clearly, but as though from a great distance.

"You can see how it appears to Bassett. If he's found it, it's the