David’s suddenly formed resolution carried him swiftly to the one big house of the village, where he rang the bell. The night being warm the outer door stood open and he could look through the screen into the dimly lighted hall. To the left of the passage was Jarvis’s library, and David, waiting impatiently before the outer door, perceived that the master of the house was within, quietly reading by a shaded lamp. Somehow the sight stirred the unreasoning anger within him to a hotter glow. His unanswered summons appeared in the guise of a deliberate insult. Raising his walking-stick he smote the door. He saw the man within raise his eyes from his book, as if to listen, and repeated his knock smartly; then as Jarvis rose and came hastily toward the door, he spoke:

“Good-evening, Mr. Jarvis,” he said, mumbling the prefix so that it was little more than an inarticulate sound. “Guess your door-bell isn’t in working order.”

Jarvis recognized his visitor with an involuntary start, which David perceived with ill-disguised triumph.

“The fellow’s afraid of me,” he told himself, and hung up his hat on the rack as if quite at his ease.

He followed Jarvis into the library and sat down, looking about him with cool curiosity.

“You’ve been expecting to see me, I dare say,” he began, his eyes returning from their tour of inspection to the other man’s face.

Jarvis returned the look doubtfully.

“It occurred to me that you might wish——”

“Yes; I do,” interrupted David. “You’re entirely right, sir.”

Having said this much in a loud, aggressive tone, David stopped short. He had become suddenly aware that Jarvis was looking at—or rather, through—him, in a way which made him irritably conscious of his hands, his feet, the set of his collar, and the material of his light summer clothes. Then those strange eyes went deeper; they were busying themselves with his thoughts, his motives, they even saw his fears, which crowded forward, a cloud of gibbering shapes, out of his past.

He spoke again, hurriedly, and backed up his words with a laugh, which sounded foolishly loud in the quiet room.

“Well,” he said, “now that you’ve had time to look me over, how d’ you like me? Think I’ll do—eh?”

“No,” Jarvis said quietly, almost sadly. “I’m afraid not. But I don’t intend to trust my own judgment—entirely.”

He sighed deeply and looked down, as if there was nothing more to be seen or said.

David straightened himself in his chair with a jerk.

“See here,” he said truculently. “I was joking, you know; you were staring at me as if you’d never seen a human being before. But now I’d like you to answer me straight. What d’you mean by saying I ‘won’t do’? What business is it of yours what I——”

He choked a little with the rage that was consuming him.

“Why, confound your impudence!” he cried, his face flaming with anger.

“I owe you an apology, sir,” said Jarvis, with stately composure. “I ought not to have spoken as I did. But there is much at stake.”

“Not for you,” said David insolently.

He fell to staring at Jarvis, striving to imitate the other’s disconcerting look.

“She loves me, you know.”

He had not intended to taunt his rival, but the words slipped out without volition. He was glad of it, in view of the blighting change that swept over the other’s face.

“Yes,” Jarvis said dully, “I know that.”

He was realizing all at once that the blow that felled Whitcomb must reach her tender breast also.

“There’s no use of beating about the bush,” David went on. “She told me about your visit to her the other night. At first I didn’t catch on about that remarkable client of yours and the care of the interesting child and all that. But when I got out of her the fact that you had been courting her while I was away, of course I was on to your little game.”

He paused to allow his words their full weight, exulting in the look of quiet despair that appeared to have settled upon Jarvis’s face.

“You thought if you couldn’t catch and hold her one way you would another. You planned to keep her from me! Deny it if you dare!”

Jarvis looked up, opened his lips as if minded to reply; then his head drooped, and again he sighed deeply. He was striving to master himself; that self which even now struggled like a leashed hound under his iron hand.

“I must be fair,” he groaned half aloud. “I must—I must, for her sake.”

“What’s that?” inquired David smartly. “We may as well have it out first as last, you know.”

“Yes,” agreed Jarvis, rousing himself. “I didn’t mean to—yet. But——”

He looked calmly at David.

“Can we not talk this over in a reasonable way?” he asked. “There is really no need of anger or——”

“Oh, come, man; let’s get down to business!” cried David, vastly pleased with himself and his own acumen.

He had not been at all certain as to the money, which he was now convinced Jarvis had given Barbara out of his own pocket. That he had surprised, compelled, browbeaten Jarvis, in what he was pleased to call “the fellow’s own game,” was a matter for pride, exultation. Who was Jarvis, anyway, that a whole countryside should stand in awe of him and his achievements? He, Whitcomb, had met the man and conquered him on his own ground. He even began to feel a sort of complacent pity for his abased rival, as his spirits rose from the depths of the humiliation falsely put upon him by Jarvis.

“‘You can fool some of the people all of the time,’ you know,” he quoted, with a confident laugh; “and you did succeed in fooling Barbara nicely; but the minute I heard you were in love with her, of course I——”

“One thing first,” interrupted Jarvis; “did she tell you—what had passed between us of her own free will?”

David burst into a laugh.

“Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, is it?” he said good-humoredly. “Well, I don’t mind informing you that Barbara didn’t tell me a single thing about you—not at first. She’s a good little scout, Barbie is, and she saved your pride all right for you. She’d never have told me, I guess; but I taxed her with it, and, of course, she couldn’t deny it. Some girls would have snapped you up quick, with all your money and everything, and with me supposedly buried up in the Klondyke. But not Barbara. She’s worth while, that girl.”

“Yes,” mused Jarvis, “she is—worth while.”

“You wouldn’t catch me loafing around this dead and alive hole for many women,” David went on, drumming with his fingers on the edge of his chair. “As it is, I’ve had about all I can stand of it; and she won’t give in and marry me—won’t even wear my ring, till that client of yours—that peculiar, hard-to-get-along-with individual you’re representing—can be either bought off, or disposed of in some way. Naturally, neither of us want to be under obligations to—you!” he finished dramatically.

“Does she—suppose that I——”

David laughed again.

“No,” he said. “Oh, no! Barbie isn’t gifted with a very keen imagination. She swallowed all you told her about that singular, out-of-town client of yours. She seems to have implicit faith in you.”

A subtle lightning flash leaped from Jarvis’s eyes.

“She’s quite right to trust me,” he said calmly. “I’ll be glad if you can do the same.”

“Oh, come now, it’s too late for any more joking between us!” cried David roughly. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You gave her that money, Jarvis, you know you did. And you did it just so as to tie her down. It’s a damned shame!”

Jarvis had risen, and David sprang eagerly from his chair to face him. The two men were of equal height, and for an instant David’s boyish blue eyes strove to master Jarvis, glance to glance. Then he drew back, baffled, furious.

“You aren’t going to stick to that cock-and-bull story a minute longer with me,” he blustered. “You know very well where the money came from!”

Jarvis bowed ceremoniously.

“Certainly I know,” he acknowledged.

“Didn’t you give it to her?”

“I shall not answer you.”

“Well, you did, and I can prove it.”

“How?”

David sprang forward with a triumphant laugh and snatched a small object from the desk.

“I have been sitting where I could look at your writing traps,” he exulted. “And I saw—this!”

Jarvis appeared quite unmoved.

“That is my seal,” he observed, “with my family crest. What of it?”

“What of it?” shouted David. “Why, it’s the thing that was used to sign that damned contract. It’s proof positive. That’s what it is!”

“My client,” said Jarvis coolly, “did not wish to use his own name. I suggested the seal. He used it—at my request.”

“Well, you’re the man, anyway,” David retorted violently. “I insist that you release her—at once. Do you hear? At once!”

“So that she can be free to marry you?” Jarvis asked. His eyes were fixed and glittered strangely.

“Yes! Why not? She’s my promised wife.”

Jarvis stood silent for a long minute, as if considering David’s words. Then he looked up, moving a little toward the door with the manifest intention of bringing the unfruitful interview to an end.

“I cannot say more at present than that I will endeavor to so arrange matters with my client as to meet Miss Preston’s wishes,” he said.

He looked calmly, dispassionately at David, and again the young man felt himself vaguely humiliated. He had meant to say more, much more; but quite unexpectedly he found himself bidding Jarvis good-night. The door closed quietly upon his wrath and discomfiture.

Stephen Jarvis did not at once resume the reading of the thin blue volume which lay face down in the bright circle of lamp-light. Instead he walked slowly up and down the room, his brows knit, his sinewy hands locked behind him. He was trying as conscientiously as possible to look at the situation from the view-point of the young man; to find, if possible, in his own conduct some valid excuse for the (to him) intolerable behavior of Whitcomb. While he yet strove with himself a second visitor was announced.

Jarvis received this person with visible reluctance, bade him be seated, and sat down himself, before he opened the conversation with a tentative, “Well!” rather impatiently uttered.

“I arrived this afternoon, Mr. Jarvis, and quite fortunately fell in at once with the person in question,” the newcomer said.

“Yes,” said Jarvis dryly.

“As I understand my commission,” pursued Mr. Todd, “I am to inform myself as to the person’s past, his present occupation and habits, and——”

Jarvis made an impatient gesture of assent.

“I want to know all about him,” he said. “It is important that I should be informed as to whether he is fitted for a position of trust.”

The other man nodded.

“I understand,” he said.

“I want to know,” pursued Jarvis in a harsh voice, “if the man is truthful, honest, temperate. If, in short, he is the man to be implicitly trusted with—interests of the highest value and importance.”

Mr. Todd again assented, his sharp ferret eyes taking in the details of his employer’s face and person with professional acumen.

“Mercantile?” he asked briskly, “or professional? There’s a difference, you know. Now a man might be something of a braggart, addicted to cigarette smoking, not averse to a temperate use of intoxicants, an occasional—er——”

“Do you see all this in him already?” demanded Jarvis.

Mr. Todd considered.

“I dined with the young man,” he said slowly, “and acquired certain information which may or may not have a bearing on your case.”

Jarvis leaned forward, glistening drops of moisture starting out on his forehead.

“Is the man merely a weak fool—weak because untried by any of the deeper experiences of life, and foolish only because he is young? or is he—worse?” he asked, in a low voice; “that is what I want to know. Temperamentally the person in question is at odds with myself. I—don’t like him. But, understand, I must not rely on my likes and dislikes in this matter. I—am obliged to be—fair to him, at all costs.”

“I understand, Mr. Jarvis,” assented the detective. “And I will tell you frankly that my own initial impressions—and I have learned to rely somewhat on first impressions as being in the main correct—are that the person referred to is somewhat inconstant, easily led, excitable, with all the faults of youth and—quite possibly”—he paused to again study the face before him, “—many of its virtues. He is, on his own testimony, selfish, extravagant, passionate.” He shook his head slowly. “I should not,” he went on, “care to trust such a man with interests calling for a high degree of business sagacity or—er—let us say sober industry. I believe it was something of the sort you questioned.”

Jarvis threw himself back in his chair. His haggard eyes met the detective’s squarely.

“Is the fellow fit to marry a good and pure woman?” he asked. “Could he command her respect and hold her affection? That’s test enough for me.”

Mr. Todd moved uneasily in his chair.

“Oh, as to that,” he hesitated, “there are all sorts of women, you know. Some of ’em like a man all the better—or appear to—if he—well; if he isn’t too good, you know. I’ve known a woman,” he went on strongly, “to marry a man who’d drink and abuse her, and yet she’d love him and stick to him to the last. There’s something queer about women, when it comes to loving a man. His character doesn’t seem to count for so much as you’d suppose.”

Jarvis assented dryly.

“You think the person in question would be likely to—do as you suggested?”

“It would be a toss-up,” said Mr. Todd thoughtfully, “as to whether he’d settle down into a steady, respectable sort of a citizen, or—” he paused to button his coat painstakingly “—the opposite. I’ll follow him up a while longer,” he went on, “and report from day to day. In a case like this, where you don’t feel like trusting your own judgment, it’s best to let facts talk.”

Mr. Todd looked searchingly into the depths of his hat.

“Facts will talk, you know,” he said confidently. “They’re bound to. Sooner or later, something comes along that tells the story. I’ve shadowed many a person in the past as could tell you that, sir, from behind prison bars.”