Mrs. Fetzer, the housekeeper, received Hilda's dinner guests on the evening of the visit to Levis. It was not a convenient season for guests, it being Sunday and the larger part of the staff of servants having been dismissed yesterday, but Hilda had extended her invitation with her usual indifference to the comfort of others. Her trunks were not yet packed nor had she indicated what articles were to go into them. Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane, who had expected to receive that afternoon directions about a rearrangement of Stephen's records and the preparation of data for a series of articles, had come at five o'clock and waited until seven.

Fetzer was annoyed, but not in the least dismayed, having been prepared for this event by many similar experiences. She put on her best black silk dress and welcomed the two women and two men who, undisturbed, settled themselves in the library for a game of cards; then she changed to less elegant attire, since in the absence of the waitress she would serve their dinner. Neither the black patch over her eye, nor the quick motions by which she compelled one eye to serve as two, made her repulsive or grotesque.

Waiting upon the table she saw that something more serious had occurred than the puncturing of a tire which had delayed the Lanfairs after leaving Levis's house. Hilda hailed her friends carelessly and asked that dinner be served at once. She ate little, watched impatiently Fetzer's deliberate ways, and announced as she rose from the table that her packing was still to be done. The guests departed amiably with loud good wishes for the journey.

Fetzer, going into the hall to tell Stephen that Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane waited, approached the library door slowly. Observing him furtively during dinner, she had been shocked by his expression; he looked to her like a beaten child who appealed from earth to heaven, and she sent up several fervent petitions in his behalf. She longed desperately to help him, but she was wholly powerless.

To Fetzer Hilda was a wicked woman; no other explanation for her mistress's behavior had ever occurred to her. Even Stephen's patience suggested no different explanation.

She did not advance far into the hall. Hilda had restrained herself in the presence of Fickes, the chauffeur, and with greater difficulty before her guests, and the postponement of the expression of her wrath had not in the least softened her heart. It had, on the contrary, exaggerated the grievance and sharpened the tongue which was to utter her wrongs.

"But she was a child!" Fetzer heard Stephen protest. His voice was like his eyes, childlike in its earnestness. It was bitter, indeed, that this old friendship which had been without exception the happiest in his life was now finally spoiled. What would Levis think of him? He regretted with sickening self-reproach his call. He might have known better; now he could never see him again, he hoped that it might never be necessary to see him—a hope, indeed, which was already granted.

Hilda accepted no apology.

"Child!" she repeated. "That was a pose to attract. How ridiculous to show you her books! She didn't look at you like a child, nor you at her."

For a moment silence prevailed. Fetzer meditated advancing. But Hilda had not finished; she found Stephen's silence far more irritating than his speech. She turned fiercely upon him with a remark which, while it was not new, was uttered with truly original ferocity.

"You'd like me to be dead; then you could live as you pleased on my money!"

Fetzer withdrew. She went through a passageway to the office where again Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane waited.

"I guess Doctor'll be out soon."

Neither of the women answered—sometimes she believed that they observed nothing, sometimes she believed that they knew everything.

After loitering for about ten minutes in the passage she again approached the library. Now Stephen was alone, sitting with his back to the door.

"Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane are here, Doctor." She spoke as though they had arrived at this moment.

"Thank you," said Stephen, without turning. Fetzer saw that though his head was bent there was no book on his knee. For the thousandth time she breathed a silent petition in his behalf. The ways of the Creator were, indeed, past all finding out.

Stephen sat for a long time looking down at his clasped hands. He believed that his life was at times in danger, but he did not believe that a committee of inquiry could find proof of the madness whose outbursts were reserved for him alone. It was a pleasant prospect for a European journey!