"I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and a

hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you're not

rational."

"No," he said heavily, "I'm not. If it's got to be someone, Sidney, I'd

rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There's a lot of talk about

Wilson."

"It isn't necessary to malign my friends." He rose.

"I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep

Reginald. He'd be something to remember you by."

"One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the

country. I'm sorry, Joe. You'll come to see me now and then, won't you?"

"If I do, do you think you may change your mind?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I've got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the better."

But his next words belied his intention. "And Wilson had better lookout.

I'll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around you--well,

he'd better look out!"

That, as it turned out, was Joe's farewell. He had reached the

breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out

to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact

that the cat followed him, close at his heels.

Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want

it--this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride

and threats. Lovers in fiction were of two classes--the accepted ones, who

loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in

despair, but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future with

Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt

aggrieved, insulted. She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously;

and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its

sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and set

an imaginary dog after it. Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she went in

and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.

Le Moyne's light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She

paused outside the door.

"Are you sleepy?"--very softly.

There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: "No,

indeed."

"I may not see you in the morning. I leave to-morrow."

"Just a minute."

From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray coat.

The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.




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