"He's gone."
"It's over?" Isabel hoarsely asked.
"It's over."
"Then we go?"
This it was that he enjoyed. "No, my dear; we stay."
There was fairly a triple gasp; relief took time to operate. "Then why did he come?"
"In the fulness of his kind heart and of Their discussed and decreed satisfaction. To express Their sense——!"
Mr. Hayes broke into a laugh, but his wife wanted to know. "Of the grand work you're doing?"
"Of the way I polish it off. They're most handsome about it. The receipts, it appears, speak——"
He was nursing his effect; Isabel intently watched him and the others hung on his lips. "Yes, speak——?"