She looked in the fire. She counted the clock’s ticking. She gazed at the Joss. What should she do? She asked them all that. What ought Hugh to do? They gave her no answer, no help. She rang the bell, and sank dejectedly into her father’s chair. “Do you know where Dr. Latham is?” she asked Barker when the girl came.

“No, Miss.”

“Find him. Tell him I want him—here, at once.”

It seemed an unconscionable time to her that she waited. But it was not long, as the clock told it. Barker had been quick for once.

“Dr. Latham, you must help me, you must help me now,” Helen cried excitedly as he came in.

At the sight of her face Latham turned back and closed the door carefully. Then he came to her.

“Help you—something has happened?”

“Yes. And that feeling I spoke of—that sense of nearness—has come back to me.”

The physician drew a chair close to hers. “You must put this out of your mind,” he told her pityingly.

She turned to him imploringly. “How can I? Daddy is speaking to me, he is trying to help me; and isn’t it terrible I can’t hear?—I can’t hear.”

“My dear child——”

“Oh, I know, you think I am nervous, overwrought—well, perhaps I am,” she said, rising and going to him, laying her hand on his chair’s high back, “but don’t you see the only way I can get any relief is to find out what Daddy wants to tell me?—Think how he must be suffering when he is trying so hard to speak to me, and I can’t hear—I can’t hear.” Latham made a gesture of sympathy and disbelief mingled, and laid his hand on hers, rising. “Oh, if you knew the circumstances you would help me, I know you would.”

Her voice was wild, but her eyes were clear and sane, and something in their steady light gave him pause—almost touched him with conviction. He was skilled at distinguishing truth from untruth, sanity from hallucination: that was no small part of his fine professional equipment. He studied her steadily, and then said gravely—

“What are the circumstances?”

“I know I can trust you.”

Latham smiled. “Of course.”

“Hugh has come back.”

“No?” Great physicians are rarely surprised. Horace Latham was very much surprised.

“He came this afternoon. Dr. Latham, he didn’t desert. Daddy told him he must give up his commission—he promised Hugh that he would arrange it; he must have died before he had the chance, but Hugh never knew. He enlisted under another name.”

Angela had always said that Hugh Pryde had done nothing shabby. She knew that. There was some explanation. Latham remembered it. Clever woman!

“But,” he said, “why did your father——”

“He thought Hugh had taken some money from the office,” Helen rushed on breathlessly. “The evidence was all against him; but he was innocent, Dr. Latham.” Latham’s face was non-committal, but he bowed his head gravely. “I know he was innocent,” the girl insisted, “and Daddy knows it now. Oh, Dr. Latham, can’t you help me?” She laid her little hands on his arm, and her tearful eyes pled with him eloquently.

Latham was moved. “My dear, how can I?” he said very gently.

“You don’t realize how vital this is,” she urged, “The authorities suspect Hugh’s whereabouts; they were at the office to-day, looking for him. If they find him before he can clear himself——”

“Yes——” Latham saw clearly the gravity of that. But what could he do? “Yes?”

“Don’t you see now that I must find out what Daddy wants to tell me?”

Latham was badly troubled. Hugh might be innocent, but the chances were the other way. Angela was the most charming creature in all the universe. Helen was very charming. But their added convictions were no evidence in a court of law, and not much before the tribunal of his own masculine judgment.

“Miss Bransby,” he told the trembling girl sadly, “if I could help you to understand, I would; but I—I—don’t know the way.”

“But you believe there is a way?” Helen said, eagerly. Even that much from his lips would be something. Every one knew Dr. Latham was wise and thoughtful and careful. “You do believe there is a way?” she repeated wistfully.

“Perhaps.” He spoke almost as wistfully as she had. “If one could only find it; but so many unhappy people have tried to stretch a hand across that gulf, and so few have succeeded—and even when they have—most of the messages that have come to them have been either frivolous or beyond our understanding.”

“But we shall find the way—we shall find it,” Helen told him positively.

“Well,” Latham said, begging the psychic question—putting it aside for the more material quandary, “somehow we will find a way to get Hugh out of this difficulty. Where is he now?”

“With Stephen,” Helen told him.

“Stephen—Stephen’s the very man to help us,” Latham said cheerfully.

Helen felt perfectly sure that Stephen might be bettered for the work in hand, but she had no time to say so, even if she would, for at that moment Mrs. Hilary ran through the door, opening it abruptly, and closing it with a clatter.

“Oh! Helen,” she cried—and then she saw Latham, and paused disconcerted.

“He knows all about Hugh, Angela,” Helen said.

“Thank goodness! Now perhaps we shan’t be long! Something dreadful has happened. My chauffeur has just brought me a note. The detectives have found out that Hugh has been at my house. Two detectives are waiting there now to question me. They may be here any moment. Thank goodness Palmer had the sense to send me word. But, what shall we do? They may be here any moment, I tell you.”

“Yes,” Latham said, “unless they have been here already.” He went to the bell and rang it. Why he rang he did not say. And neither of the women asked him, only too content, as all but the silliest women, or the bitterest, are, to throw the responsibility of immediate practical action in such dilemmas on to a man they trusted. The three waited in silence until Barker said—

“You rang, miss?”

“I rang, Barker,” Latham answered. “Has any one been here lately asking for Mr. Hugh?”

“Yes, sir. This afternoon, sir.”

“This afternoon!” Helen cried in dismay.

“Yes, miss, about an hour ago, two men come—came.”

“What did you tell them?” Latham asked quickly. “I told them the truth, sir, of course, as I ’adn’t never been told to tell them anything else, that he has never been here, not once since the master died.”

“Quite right,” Latham said cordially. “And, Barker, if they should happen to come back, let me know at once, and I’ll speak to them.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And—Barker, did they see any one but you?”

“No, sir.”

“You are sure?”

“Oh yes, sir. I stood at the hall window and watched them until the road turned, and I couldn’t see them no more.”

“They will come back,” Helen almost sobbed as the door closed behind Barker.

“When they come back Hugh will not be here,” Latham told her confidently.

“Then you are going to help us?”

“Of course.” Latham smiled at her. In all his years of conventional rectitude, he had never defied the law of his land; and he fully realized the heinousness of aiding a deserter soldier to escape arrest—and in war time too—and its possible consequences. But he was staunch in friendship, he was greatly sorry for Helen, be the merits of Hugh’s case what they might, and he knew that Angela’s eye was on him. And this thing he could do. To raise the dead to the girl’s aid he had no necromancy, but to smuggle Hugh away he might easily compass, if no more time were lost. “Of course,” he repeated. “I must. Go and tell Hugh to come here as quickly as he can.”

“Yes,” Helen said eagerly. “Oh, thank you, Doctor.”

“That’s all right,” he said cheerfully.

Helen hurried away. Latham held out his hand, and Angela came to him and put hers in it. She asked him no question, and for a space he stood thinking.

“Now, dear,” he said in a moment.

“Yes,” she said eagerly.

“You must go at once.”

“I know—but where can I go?”

“Home.”

“Home!” She echoed his word in consternation.

“Yes, go back as if nothing had happened.” He put his arm about her and led her towards the door.

“As if nothing had happened?” she said feebly.

“Keep those men there until we have a chance to get Hugh safely away.”

“Oh——” she cried in a panic. “Oh—I couldn’t.”

“You must.” If “must” is the one word no woman forgives any man ordinarily, it can on the other hand be the sweetest she ever hears—at the right moment, from the right man. Angela accepted it meekly, and proudly too. “But what can I say to them?” she begged.

“Oh, say—anything, anything.”

“But, Horace, what does one say to detectives?”

“You can say whatever comes into your head,” he replied, smiling into her eyes. “After all they are only men.”

Angela dimpled. “Yes—so they are—just men. I dare say I can manage.”

“I dare say you can,” Horace Latham retorted dryly.