Here at the desk very soon after supper-time the Doctor had joined him, and with an unusual expression of leisure and friendliness had settled down lollingly on the other side of the fireplace with his great square-toed shoes nudging the bright, brassy edge of the fender, and his big meerschaum pipe puffing the whole bleak room most deliciously, tantalizingly full of forbidden tobacco smoke. It was a comfortable, warm place to chat. The talk had begun with politics, drifted a little way toward the architecture of several new city buildings, hovered a moment over the marriage of some mutual friend, and then languished utterly.
With a sudden narrowing-eyed shrewdness the Doctor turned and watched an unwonted flicker of worry on Stanton's forehead.
"What's bothering you, Stanton?" he asked, quickly. "Surely you're not worrying any more about your rheumatism?"
"No," said Stanton. "It—isn't—rheumatism."
For an instant the two men's eyes held each other, and then Stanton began to laugh a trifle uneasily.
"Doctor," he asked quite abruptly, "Doctor, do you believe that any possible conditions could exist—that would make it justifiable for a man to show a woman's love-letter to another man?"
"Why—y-e-s," said the Doctor cautiously, "I think so. There might be—circumstances—"
Still without any perceptible cause, Stanton laughed again, and reaching out, picked up a folded sheet of paper from the table and handed it to the Doctor.
"Read that, will you?" he asked. "And read it out loud."
With a slight protest of diffidence, the Doctor unfolded the paper, scanned the page for an instant, and began slowly.