Trucks, low sleds, and huge wagons emerged in a steady stream from lanes leading down to the wharves, where ships great and small lay moored. Rumbling out of these lanes with much noise and cracking of whips from impatient drivers, these heavy vehicles were a constant menace to unwary passers-by.

Dr. Camperdown having relapsed into a reflective mood had a number of narrow escapes. Jumping aside just in time, he went on his way, brushing heedlessly along by sailors, hoarse-voiced captains of fishing craft who wore bright-colored scarfs around their throats, the few women who appeared in the street, and an occasional shivering child, running with a few cents in its hand to the nearest eating-place for something to supplement a late breakfast.

At frequent intervals he passed by clothing shops, whose dangling garments of oilskin, fur rugs, and woolen wraps formed numerous little arbors in front of their entrance doors. Once a swinging line of rough socks caught in his cap, was impatiently swept aside, and fell to the ice and snow on the pavement. The irate shopkeeper rushed out, and sent a volley of bad language after him, which Camperdown listened to complacently, and then strode on without replying.

At last he arrived in front of the place he sought—a substantial, brick building with Armour & Son, Cobequid Warehouse, in gilt letters across its wide archway.

He wished to go down the wharf to Mr. Armour’s office, and passing under the heads of a pair of mules that were dragging a load of barrels of flour out into the street, he followed a narrow, plank walk at the side of the building, occasionally glancing up as he did so at the rows of barred, prison-like windows above him.

“A more ponderous erection this, than the first one,” he said half aloud. “Wonder how long it will stand? ’Till after poor Stanton is in his grave probably;” and opening a door before him, he stepped into a small passage which gave private entrance to Mr. Armour’s office.

A tap at the door and he was permitted to enter by a curt, “Come in.”

In a good-sized room of moderate height sat the virtual head of the Armour firm, a pen between his fingers, his eye engaged in running up and down the columns of an account book that he held propped up before him.

The doors of the massive safes sunk into the wall, stood half open; inside could be seen in compartments, filed papers, rows of books, and small padlocked boxes. On the wall hung calendars, the signal service system of the port of Halifax, a map of Nova Scotia, and various memoranda relating to the business.

Camperdown approached the heavy table where Mr. Armour sat, and throwing his cap on it, pulled toward him one of the haircloth easy-chairs of the room, and said agreeably as he sat down, “Morning, Stanton. Is business progressing?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Armour, a faint smile hovering about his lips.

He had just received news from his Jamaica agent of the profitable sale of some West Indian cargoes, and was feeling almost cheerful in consequence of it—the making of money being the one ray of sunlight in his joyless existence. However, he did not tell Dr. Camperdown this, and the latter went on:

“There’s a point in the science of killing people, Stanton, that I’d like to have you know. When you tackle me, don’t do it with cold steel, or frost and snow and icy atmosphere. If I’m going to be put out of the world, let me have an easy, comfortable going. Something warm and pleasant.”

“I am at a loss to understand your meaning,” said Armour in a cold voice.

“Drowning is a pleasant death,” went on Camperdown inexorably; “or bleeding; cyanide of potassium kills a cat quickly. You can shoot a dog quicker than you can starve him. More agreeable to the dog too.”

“Your jesting is unintelligible to me.”

“I daresay,” replied Camperdown. “Why don’t you try to make ma’m’selle happier, Stanton?”

Armour scanned him silently.

“She’s eating her heart out about something,” said Camperdown with suspicious smoothness. “Those French people are all fire and suppressed passion. You don’t understand them, Stanton.”

“I have had some experience with French people,” said Armour tranquilly.

“Well you don’t understand women, anyway.”

“And you do.”

“Yes, I know just how to manage them. I know how to do most things. With the boundless conceit of the average man I think I could run the universe. Why don’t you buy ma’m’selle some new gloves, Stanton? I noticed that she had on shabby ones the other day.”

Armour burst into one of his rare and mirthless laughs. “Really, Camperdown, you are hard to suit with regard to this young lady. Is this the fifth or the sixth time that you have interviewed me about her? Would you accept a position as lady’s maid out at Pinewood?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said his listener with a growl.

“I want to do my duty by her,” said Armour. “She has always had a handsome allowance. I rarely notice a woman’s dress; but she certainly would have attracted my attention had she been imperfectly clad.”

“Do you ever look at her, Stanton?”

“Yes; occasionally.”

“You do not like her?”

“I really cannot see that my feeling toward her matters in the slightest degree,” said Armour evasively. “By the way, now you are here, will you prescribe something for me? I am having insomnia again.”

“Go to bed early; eat more; and when you leave your office leave your business behind you, not take it home and work half the night in your library,” and Dr. Camperdown surveyed his patient in great moodiness. “I won’t give you powders, so you needn’t ask me. You’re breaking natural laws and have been for years. There’ll be a collapse some day.”

Mr. Armour’s quiet self-possession did not leave him, and he returned his friend’s gaze with tranquil eyes.

Something in his glance reminded Camperdown of Stargarde, and a softer mood came over him. “Stanton,” he said, and he stretched one hand across the table, “what is the matter with you?”

Mr. Armour measured him with a glance of calm surprise, and made no answer.

“What is it that happened,” Camperdown went on, “to freeze you, to turn you from a living man to a block of ice—what is it, Stanton?”

Again there was no reply, and his friend continued eagerly:

“You are alive; you eat, drink, sleep, and walk about, yet there is no joy in living. Have you ever heard of the drug ‘curare’?”

Armour shook his head.

“It is much in favor with certain members of my fraternity. They use it, as they say, in the interests of science and for the benefit of mankind. Animals to whom it is administered cannot move or cry out, but their nerves are rendered acutely and intensely sensitive. Sometimes,” softly, “I fancy that you have been curarized, Stanton.”

Armour smiled in rather a ghastly way, and murmured some unintelligible reply.

“By our ancient friendship,” said Camperdown in persuasive accents, “tell me. If you are in trouble, let me share it,” and uneasily getting up as if he could not remain on his seat, he tramped about the office, not noisily, but very gently, and pushing the chairs aside with his foot. “Stanton,” coming and bending over the immovable figure at the table, “I have liked very few men, of them you most of all. When we were lads, I loved you like a girl. I never told you, but the ancient liking has not entirely passed away. I would help you if I could,” and the pent-up emotion of years found expression in a movement that from Brian Camperdown was a tender caress; he stooped down and laid his arm across his friend’s shoulder.

Something of Armour’s immobility gave way. A slight flush rose to his face, and he said huskily: “I am grateful to you, but there is nothing to tell. My business oppresses me.”

“Is that all?” asked Camperdown keenly. “You know it is not. You’re eaten up by some worry; everybody knows it.”

Armour pushed back his chair, and rose suddenly. “Is it as bad as that?” he said hastily. “Am I remarked upon?”

“We don’t see ourselves as others see us. People know that you’re not in a normal condition. Of course they discuss you. Who are you that the rest of the world should be gossiped about and you go scot free? Now you’ll try to mend, won’t you? Throw your burden into the sea. Tell some woman about it, if you won’t trust me. If she loves you, you’ll be supremely happy; if she doesn’t, you’ll be supremely miserable, which is the next best thing. Take that little French girl into your heart, Stanton. Next to Stargarde she comes, sweet and true and gentle, and yet full of fire; just the right qualities for you.”

Armour looked at him in undisguised dismay. “This is wildness; in the name of mercy stop. Have you been propounding this fine scheme to her?”

“Yes; we discuss it often,” said Camperdown, throwing sentiment to the winds and coming back to his accustomed state of irritability; “she’s no more in favor of it than you are; says she had as soon wed a mummy as you. Also that you’ve been detestable to her. Good luck to you in your wooing,” and with a look of unqualified disapprobation he strode to the door, slammed it behind him, and hurried through the streets to his own office, where a formidable array of patients restlessly awaited him.

Left alone Armour glanced about him in an impatient way. As if with mischievous finger the words had been traced on the wall, he saw them staring at him whichever way he turned, “Take the little French girl into your heart; take the little French girl into your heart.” The very air seemed to be ringing with the foolish speech.

“I wish that Camperdown would let me alone,” he muttered irritably. “I shall never marry; if I ever did, she is the last woman in the world that I could or would choose. If he knew everything he would not be so ready with his advice.” Then his face softened. “I wonder what she would say if she could know of this conversation. I have never satisfied myself about that suspicion. I will do so to-day,” and with the air of a man well used to mastering his emotions he set his book up before him again, and was soon busy with the solution of some financial problems in which he had been interrupted by the entrance of his friend.

An hour or two later his man came to take him home to lunch. “I shall not go back so early as usual,” he said, as he left the sleigh at Pinewood. “Come for me half an hour later.”

At the lunch table he did once glance at the place where Vivienne sat quietly eating her baked potatoes and roast beef, and listening with an amused air to Judy’s semi-sarcastic remarks.

Mrs. Colonibel, busy with some thoughts of her own, scarcely spoke, and Colonel Armour and Valentine were not present.

“Will you be good enough to come to the library for a few minutes,” said Armour, letting his blue eyes rest for an instant on Vivienne as they left the table.

With a murmured reply in the affirmative, she passed by him as he held open the door for her.

“He looks as if he were going to scold her,” said Judy turning to her mother. “Do you know whether he thinks that she has been doing anything out of the way?”

“No,” said Mrs. Colonibel, coming out of her reverie; “I don’t; but I know that he scarcely approves of anything that she does. He fairly hates her.”

“Does he?” chuckled Judy with a sly glance at her mother. “She is not afraid of him at any rate. I admire her, mamma—she’s so cool and sweet. Don’t you wish you were like her?” and with an impertinent laugh the girl slipped by her.

“I shall not detain you long,” Armour was saying to Vivienne in the library. “I only want to give you this,” and he took an envelope from his pocket, “and to ask you to pardon me for my thoughtlessness in not handing it to you before.”

Vivienne blushed painfully and put back his proffered hand with the question, “Is it money?”

“It is.”

“I cannot take it,” and she drew a long breath and looked at the door as if she would like to escape from the room.

“Why not?”

“I do not need it.”

He surveyed her in quiet disapprobation. “You are vexed with me because I did not give it to you before. But I forgot that you would still have expenses, though under my roof.”

“No, I am not vexed; but I still have some money left and I cannot take any more from you.”

“Again I ask, why not?”

“Because—because I do not think that it is right for me to do so.”

She was very much disturbed though she controlled herself admirably. In an interested fashion he noted the whiteness and evenness of the teeth pressing nervously against the red rebellious lips to keep them from bursting into speech.

“Pardon me,” he said; “but I like to get at motives. Do you refuse this money because you dislike me so intensely or——”

“Oh, no, no,” she exclaimed, eagerly and protestingly.

“You have avoided me so studiously lately,” he went on, “that really I began to fear it was marked by other people.”

Always that fear of what others would say. Vivienne smiled demurely. “You mistake me; I never felt so grateful to you—not even when I was a little girl and used to carry about a picture of Napoleon because it resembled you.”

“Did you really admire me to that extent?” he said ironically.

“I did.”

“And now you dislike me,” he said with persistence.

“I have told you that I do not, Mr. Armour.”

“You endure me then?”

“No, I do not endure you;” and she laughed outright. “I am, as I said before, intensely grateful to you.”

“She has as many moods as there are hours in the day,” he soliloquized in internal discontent. “I wonder how I had better make my next attempt?”

She spoke first. “Mr. Armour, you said that you brought me here to accomplish a certain purpose, and when it was accomplished I might leave. Has the time not yet come?”

“It has,” he replied with a return to his usual heavy expression. “You may go at any time. My design has been frustrated, as so many of my designs are.”

“I am sorry,” she said, “very sorry, for I know that whatever your purpose was, it was a worthy one.”

“That is a kind thing for you to say,” he responded with unusual animation, “and very fitting. Now you will take this money.”

“I cannot, Mr. Armour, and——”

“You will not,” he said finishing her sentence for her, “not even to gratify me. Well, though you will soon leave me, as I see you plan to do, I shall still have a care of your movements.”

She cast down her eyes. “I will take it,” she said hurriedly. “If you would believe me I would tell you that I am more pained to reject kindnesses from you than you are to have them rejected.”

“Is that the truth?” he asked calmly.

“It is.”

“We shall miss you after you go away,” he went on after he had seen the envelope bestowed in her pocket; “but you, I fancy, will be happy to leave us.”

“No, no, not happy; I shall regret it.”

“You will miss Judy,” he continued; “the other members of the family you are indifferent to.”

She lifted her glowing eyes to his face. There was a method in his way of questioning her, and it effected an immediate change in her manner. “If you have no more to say to me,” she observed quietly, “I will go away.”

“I have nothing more,” he said, “except to make the simple observation that you are free to return here at any time.”

“I shall not return, Mr. Armour.”

The proud sadness of her tone touched him. “You arrogant child,” he exclaimed, “how can you tell? What do you know of life?”

“I know what is right for me to do,” she said almost inaudibly, “and I must not keep you any longer.”

“Stay,” he said, “just for one instant. Till you answer my last question. Judy is the one that you most dread the parting from?”

“Yes, Judy—why not Judy?” she said composedly.

It was not Judy. He saw who it was in every curve of her suddenly erect, defiant figure, in every line of her dark annoyed face as she went quickly away.

“I have not been engaged in a very honorable employment,” he said when he was left alone. “Baiting an innocent girl has not heretofore been one of my pastimes; but I wanted to find out—and she has teased me and braved me as no other woman has ever done. She loves me.” And with a deep flush of gratification he drew on his gloves and left the room. “Hereafter her position in my house will be very different. Perhaps she may not leave us—who knows?” And with a growing conviction in his mind that there were things in the world of more interest than money-making, he drove to his office.