"I sold them quite well," said Miss Trevellyn, with sparkling eyes—"and you may guess what I did with the money—but it's not fair to call them copies. I made them as inaccurate as possible without spoiling everything, and indeed I couldn't have made them very accurate from memory, and they were only rough sketches to begin with! Of course George was wrong to let me see them, but he was assisting in the best of causes. Rocchi was an expert professional spy. I soon sized him down as one. But he was not a naval expert—and I'm that as well! That's my last boast, Doctor Dollar; but it's not unjustifiable, if you come to think of George and me between us keeping a national enemy out of serious mischief, feeding a friendly Power with false plans, and giving the money to our own dear Navy League!"
Dollar surveyed the radiant minx with eyes that needed rubbing. His only sorrow was that Edenborough did not burst through the curtains without more ado; he must have extraordinary self-control, when he liked.
"Not that George was a conscious party to the fraud; he wouldn't have approved of it, he couldn't possibly, poor George!" said George's bride. "But I shall tell him all about it now; of course I always meant to tell him—after to-morrow—but he has had quite enough bothers of his own, and this was my show. I suppose you don't know what's been bothering him, Doctor Dollar? He says it's overwork, and I do think Lord Stockton's an old slave-driver; do you know, I haven't even seen George since the day before yesterday at Prince's?"
"Nor I," said Dollar, no longer with the least compunction, "from that hour to this."
"Of course I know he's all right," concluded Miss Trevellyn, as they were parting perfect friends, "because he has rung me up several times to say so, and he looked better on Monday than for ever so long. But I must own I shall be glad when I get him away for a real good rest."
She had refused to hear another word from Dollar in explanation, or of regret, and she made her departure with all the abruptness of a constitutionally decided person. But she had blushed once at least in the last few minutes. And the doctor ran back into his den with singing heart, ready to fall upon his patient's neck in deep thanksgiving and even more profound congratulation.
No patient was there to meet him even now, but the curtain swayed a little before the open window. Dollar reached it at a bound; but there was nobody outside on the iron steps, and the curtain filled behind him as the inner door banged in the draft. The horrid little space at the back of the house, between the high black walls with the broken-bottle coping, lay empty of all life in the plentiful light from the back windows—but for an early cat that fled before Dollar's precipitate descent into the basement.
"The gentleman's gone," said Mrs. Barton at once. "He come through this way some time ago—said he couldn't wait no longer out there!"
"How long do you suppose he had waited?"
"Not long," said Mrs. Barton firmly. "Bob here was at his tea when he had to go up to show the young lady in; and the young gentleman, it couldn't've been more than three or four minutes before he was through 'ere as if something had 'appened."