So, though Sinclair tried honestly to forget NumÈ and harden himself against her, he could not do so. He grew so thin and wretched looking that his friends began to notice it. They thought it was due to the fact that he had worked so hard lately on the missionary's case.

"You ought to take a rest and change of some sort, Sinclair," Mr. Davis told him, "now that you have got the missionary off. Why not take a run down to Matsushima, where the Ballards are? Cleo thinks the spot even more beautiful than about Fuji-Yama."

"I hadn't thought of going away," Sinclair said, absently; "besides, Cleo is coming back next week, anyhow."

"Well, suppose you run down for the rest of the week, and then come home with the party."

Sinclair remained thinking a moment.

"Yes, perhaps it would divert me for the time being," he said, drawing his brows together with a sudden flash of pain, as he remembered how he had once told NumÈ that they would visit Matsushima together, some day. Mr. Davis left him at his desk.

"Can't make out what's the matter with Sinclair," he told his wife. "He looks wretched, and is as absent-minded as he can be. Seems to be worrying about something."

"He no doubt is—a—lonely, Walter. When Cleo returns he will be all right."

In the same way as she trusted or tried to make herself believe that Orito's presence would cure NumÈ, so she liked to imagine that Cleo Ballard's return would raise Sinclair out of the despondency into which he had fallen.

"No—Jenny, I think you make a mistake about Sinclair's caring so much for Cleo," Walter Davis said, slowly.

"What makes you say that?" his wife interrupted, sharply, fearful that he had guessed something during NumÈ's illness in their house; for she had told him nothing, as yet.

Her husband hesitated a moment before answering, then he said:

"Fact is, I saw on his desk quite a batch of unopened letters. I wanted Sinclair to go somewhere with me. He pleaded press of business, and I took it he had to answer those letters. They were all from one person, Jenny, and were lying in a letter basket on his desk without even the seals broken. I made the remark that he had quite a lot of mail for one day. What do you think he answered? 'This is nearly a week's mail'—and said he had forgotten the letters."

Davis flicked the ash from his cigar into a receiver, then he continued, slowly: "My dear, the letters were from Cleo Ballard. I know her writing. A man does not let the letters from a girl he is in love with remain unopened long," he added.

Mrs. Davis got up. "Walter," she said, indignantly, "that man is a—a brute."