She laid her hand on his arm.

"Stop! will it do any good?"

Calton hesitated a moment, for he thought that if the reason of Brian's
silence was, as he surmised, an intrigue with a married woman,
he might not tell the girl he was engaged to about it--but, on the
other hand, there might be some other reason, and Calton trusted to
Madge to find it out. With these thoughts in his mind he turned round.

"Yes," he answered, boldly, "it may save his life."

"Then I shall go," she answered, recklessly "He is more to me than my
father, and if I can save him, I will. Wait," and she ran out of the
room.

"An uncommonly plucky girl," murmured the lawyer, as he looked out of
the window. "If Fitzgerald is not a fool he will certainly tell her
all--that is, of course, if he is able to--queer things these women are--I
quite agree with Balzac's saying that no wonder man couldn't
understand woman, seeing that God who created her failed to do so."

Madge came back dressed to go out, with a heavy veil over her face.

"Shall I order the carriage?" she asked, pulling on her gloves with
trembling fingers.

"Hardly," answered Calton, dryly, "unless you want to see a paragraph
in the society papers to the effect that Miss Madge Frettlby visited