away till I'm quite well again. I come here usually. It seems absurd, but I
must confess I was sorry last year when we fell into conversation. I knew
I should very soon be letting myself go, or, rather, very soon be swept
away. Perhaps I ought to have warned you; but--I'm a rather shy man.
And then you mentioned the subject of palmistry. You said you believed
in it. I wondered at that. I had once read Desbarolles's book about it, but
I am bound to say I thought the whole thing very great nonsense indeed."

"Then," I gasped, "it isn't even true that you believe in palmistry?"

"Oh, no. But I wasn't able to tell you that. You had begun by
saying that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded to scoff at
it. While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a terribly good reason
for NOT scoffing; and in a flash I saw the terribly good reason; I
had the whole story--at least I had the broad outlines of it--clear before
me."

"You hadn't ever thought of it before?" He shook his
head. My eyes beamed. "The whole thing was a sheer improvisation?"

"Yes," said Laider, humbly, "I am as bad as all that. I don't say that
all the details of the story I told you that evening were filled in at the very
instant of its conception. I was filling them in while we talked about
palmistry in general, and while I was waiting for the moment when the
story would come in most effectively. And I've no doubt I added some
extra touches in the course of the actual telling. Don't imagine that I took
the slightest pleasure in deceiving you. It's only my will, not my
conscience, that is weakened after influenza. I simply can't help telling
what I've made up, and telling it to the best of my ability. But I'm
thoroughly ashamed all the time."