and they took shelter in the nearest topic, like wayfarers
overtaken by a storm. While he listened to her account of the
concert he began to think that, after all, she had not yet sorted
the papers, and that her agitation of the previous day must be
ascribed to another cause, in which perhaps he had but an indirect
concern. He wondered it had never before occurred to him that
Flamel was the kind of man who might very well please a woman at
his own expense, without need of fortuitous assistance. If this
possibility cleared the outlook it did not brighten it. Glennard
merely felt himself left alone with his baseness.

Alexa left the breakfast-table before him and when he went up to
the drawing-room he found her dressed to go out.

"Aren't you a little early for church?" he asked.

She replied that, on the way there, she meant to stop a moment at
her mother's; and while she drew on her gloves, he fumbled among
the knick-knacks on the mantel-piece for a match to light his
cigarette.

"Well, good-by," she said, turning to go; and from the threshold
she added: "By the way, I've sorted the papers you gave me. Those
that I thought you would like to keep are on your study-table."
She went downstairs and he heard the door close behind her.

She had sorted the papers--she knew, then--she MUST know--and she
had made no sign!

Glennard, he hardly knew how, found himself once more in the