The boss had gone to tramping again and when he stopped to face her I could see that he had threshed his way around to some sort of a conclusion.
"Without intending to, you have tied my hands," he said gravely. "I wasn't meaning to spare Collingwood if there were any way in which I could use him as a club to knock Hatch out of the game."
"But now you won't use him?"
"You might justly write me down as a pretty poor friend of yours if I should—after what you have told me."
"I haven't asked you to spare him."
"No, I know you haven't. But the fact remains that he is your husband. I——"
The interruption was the opening and closing of the front door and the heavy tread of the major in the hall. In a flash Mrs. Sheila was up and getting ready to vanish through the door that led to the dining-room. With her hand on the door-knob she shot a quick question at the boss.
"How much will you tell Cousin Basil?"
"Nothing of what you have told me."
"Thank you," she whispered back; "you are as big in your friendship as you are in other ways." And with that she was gone.