impulsively caught her by both hands.

"He's bigger and bigger!" he almost shouted. "He simply leads the field!
You'll help me go to the bottom of this, won't you? We must turn out all
the papers--letters, journals, memoranda. He must have made notes. He
must have left some record of what led up to this. We must leave nothing
unexplored. By Jove," he cried, looking up at her with his bright
convincing smile, "do you know you're the granddaughter of a Great Man?"

Her color flickered like a girl's. "Are you--sure of him?" she whispered,
as though putting him on his guard against a possible betrayal of trust.

"Sure! Sure! My dear lady--" he measured her again with his quick confident
glance. "Don't _you_ believe in him?"

She drew back with a confused murmur. "I--used to." She had left her
hands in his: their pressure seemed to send a warm current to her heart.
"It ruined my life!" she cried with sudden passion. He looked at her
perplexedly.

"I gave up everything," she went on wildly, "to keep him alive. I
sacrificed myself--others--I nursed his glory in my bosom and it died--and
left me--left me here alone." She paused and gathered her courage with a
gasp. "Don't make the same mistake!" she warned him.

He shook his head, still smiling. "No danger of that! You're not alone, my
dear lady. He's here with you--he's come back to you to-day. Don't you see
what's happened? Don't you see that it's your love that has kept him alive?
If you'd abandoned your post for an instant--let things pass into other
hands--if your wonderful tenderness hadn't perpetually kept guard--this