will you be--ah--kind enough to go into the kitchen?"

"Hey? Go into the kitchen? Course I will. What do you want in the kitchen, Mr. Bangs?"

He regarded her solemnly. "I should like to have you there, if you don't mind," he observed. "This gentleman and I are--we would prefer to be alone. I'm very sorry, but you must excuse me this time and--ah--go."

"Go? You want me to go out and--and not stay here?"

"Yes. Yes--ah--quite so, Primmie. Ah--good-night."

Primmie departed, slamming the door and muttering indignation. Galusha sighed once more. Then he relapsed into silence.

Twenty minutes later Martha herself came in. They heard her enter the dining room, then Primmie's voice in resentful explanation. When Miss Phipps did come into the sitting room, she was smiling slightly.

"Primmie's heart is broken," she observed. "Oh, don't worry, it isn't a very serious break. She hasn't had so much to talk about for goodness knows when and yet nobody wants to listen to her. I told her to tell Luce about it, but that didn't seem to soothe her much. Luce is Lucy Larcom, Mr. Cabot," she explained. "He is our cat."

Cousin Gussie, already a much bewildered man, looked even more bewildered, but Martha did not observe his condition. She turned to his companion.

"Mr. Bangs," she said, "it's all right. Or goin' to be all right, I'm sure. Cap'n Jeth is takin' the whole thing a good deal better than I was afraid there at first. He is dreadfully shaken, poor man, and he seems to feel as if the last plank had foundered from beneath him, as father used to say; but, if it doesn't have any worse effect than that, I shall declare the whole business a mercy and a miracle. If it has the effect of curin' him of the Marietta Hoag kind of spiritualism--and it really looks like a cure--then it will be worth all the scare it gave us. At first all he would say was that everything was a fraud and a cheat, that his faith had been taken away, there was nothin' left--nothin'. But Lulie, bless her heart, was a brave girl and a dear one. She said, 'I am left, father. You've got me, you know.' And he turned to her and clung to her as if she was his only real sheet anchor. As, of course, she is, and would have been always if he hadn't gone adrift after Little Cherry Blossom and such rubbish. Mr. Bangs, I--"

She paused. She looked first at Galusha and then at the Boston banker. Her tone changed.

"Why, what is it?" she asked, quickly. "What is the matter? . . . Mr. Bangs--"

Galusha had risen when she entered. He was pale, but resolute.

"Miss Phipps," he began, "I--I have been waiting to--to say something to you. I--ah--yes, to say something. Yes, Miss Phipps."

It was the first time he had addressed her as "Miss Phipps" for many months. He had, ever since she granted him permission and urged him to drop formality, addressed her as Miss Martha and seemed to take pride in that permission and to consider it an honor. Now the very fact of his returning to the old manner was, although she did not yet realize it, an indication that he considered his right to her friendship forfeited.

"Miss Phipps," he began once more, "I--I wish to make a confession, a humiliating confession. I shall not ask you to forgive me. I realize that what I have done is quite beyond pardon."

He stopped again; the road was a hard one to travel. Martha gazed at him, aghast and uncomprehending. Cabot, understanding but little more, shrugged his shoulders.

"For heaven's sake, old man," he exclaimed, "don't speak like that! You haven't committed murder, have you?"

Galusha did not answer nor heed him. It was to Martha Phipps he spoke and at her that he looked, as a guilty man in the prisoners' dock might regard the judge about to pronounce his death sentence.

"Miss Phipps," he began, for the third time, "I have deceived you. I--I have lied to you, not only once but--ah--ah--a great many times. I am quite unworthy of your respect--ah, quite."

Martha's face expressed many things, absolute amazement predominant.

"Why--why, Mr. Bangs!" she gasped. "What--"

"Pardon me," went on Galusha. "I was about to explain. I--I will try to make the explanation brief. It is--ah--very painful to me to make and will be, I fear, as painful for you to hear. Miss Phipps, when I told you--or gave you to understand--that my cousin here, or his firm, Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot, bought that--ah-- Development stock of yours, I deceived you; I told you a falsehood. They did not buy it. . . . I bought it, myself."

He blurted out the last sentence, after a short but apparent mental struggle. Martha's chest heaved, but she said no word. The criminal continued:

"I will not attempt at this time to tell you how I was--ah--forced into buying it," he said; "further than to say that I--I had very foolishly led you to count upon my cousin's buying it and--and felt a certain responsibility and--a desire not to disappoint you. I-- of course, I should have told you the truth, but I did not. I bought the stock myself."

Again he paused and still Martha was silent. Cousin Gussie seemed about to speak and then to change his mind.

"Perhaps," went on Galusha, with a pitiful attempt at a smile, "you might have forgiven me that, although it is doubtful, for you had expressly forbidden my lending you money or--or assisting you in any way, which I was--please believe this--very eager to do. But, after having bought it, I, as I say, deceived you, falsified, prevaricated--excuse me--lied to you, over and over. . . . Oh, dear me!" he added, in a sudden burst, "I assure you it is unbelievable how many falsehoods seemed to be necessary. I lied continually, I did, indeed.

"Well, that is all," he said. "That is all, I believe. . . . I--I am very sorry. . . . After your extreme kindness to me, it was--I . . . I think perhaps, if you will excuse me, I will go to my room. I am--ah--somewhat agitated. Good-night."

He was turning away, but Cabot called to him.

"Here, wait a minute, Loosh," he cried. "There is one thing more you haven't told us. Why on earth did you buy Hallett's four hundred shares?"

Galusha put his hand to his forehead.

"Oh, yes, yes," he said. "Yes, of course. That was very simple. I was--ah--as one may say, coerced by my guilty conscience. Captain Hallett had learned--I don't know precisely how, but it is quite immaterial--that Miss Phipps had, through me and to you, Cousin Gussie, as he supposed, sold her shares. He wished me to sell his. I said I could not. Then he said he should go to your office in Boston and see you, or your firm, and sell them himself. I could not allow that, of course. He would have discovered that I had never been there to sell anything at all and--and might have guessed what had actually happened. So I was obliged to buy his stock also and--and pretend that you had bought it. I lied to him, too, of course. I--I think I have lied to every one. . . . I believe that is really all. Good-night."

"One more thing, Loosh. What did you do with the certificates, Hallett's and Miss Phipps'? You got them, I suppose."

"Eh? Yes, oh, yes, I got them. I don't know where they are."

"WHAT? Don't know where they ARE?"

"No. I took them to your office, Cousin Gussie. I enclosed them in a large envelope and took them there. I gave them to a person named--ah--Taylor, I think that was the name."

"Taylor? There is no Taylor in our office."

"It was not Taylor. It may have been Carpenter, although that doesn't seem exactly right, either. It was the name of some one-- ah--a person who does something to you, you know, like a tailor or a carpenter or a--a butcher--or--"

"Barbour! Was it Barbour?"

"Yes, that was it--Barbour. I gave Mr. Barbour the envelope. I don't know what he did with it; I told him I preferred not to know. . . . Please excuse me. Good-night."

He turned abruptly and walked from the room. They heard him ascending the stairs. For a moment the pair he had left looked at each other in silence. Then Cabot burst into a shout of laughter. He rocked back and forth in his chair and laughed until Martha, who was not laughing, began to think he might laugh forever.

"Oh, by Jove, this is funny?" he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. "This is the funniest thing I ever heard of. Excuse the hysterics, Miss Phipps, but it certainly is. For the past month Williams and I, through this fellow Pulcifer down here, have been working heaven and earth to get the six hundred and fifty shares of that stock we supposed you and Hallett owned. And all the time it was locked up in my own safe there in Boston! And to think that old Loosh, of all persons, should have put this over on us. Ho, ho, ho! Isn't it rich!"

He roared and rocked for another interval. Still Martha did not speak, nor even smile. She was not looking at him, but at the braided rug beneath her feet, and he could not see the expression of her face.

"I may as well explain now," he went on, when this particular laugh was over, "that my friend Williams is one of the leading hotel men of this country. He owns two very big hotels in Florida and one in