whether it be true or not."

"Oh, it is true enough. One cannot imagine what they would do
without you."

He was watching Septimus Marvin as he spoke. Sep had joined him and
was walking gravely by his side toward the house. They were ill-
assorted.

"But there is a limit even to self-sacrifice and--well, there is
another world open to you."

She gave a curt laugh as if he had touched a topic upon which they
would disagree.

"Oh--yes," he laughed. "I leave myself open to a tu quoque, I know.
There are other worlds open to me also, you would say."

He looked at her with his gay and easy smile; but she made no
answer, and her resolute lips closed together sharply. The subject
had been closed by some past conversation or incident which had left
a memory.

"Who are those two men staying at 'The Black Sailor'", she asked,
changing the subject, or only turning into a by-way, perhaps. "You
saw them."

She seemed to take it for granted that he should have seen them,
though he had not appeared to look in their direction.