“Why didn’t you tell him?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t think it necessary. Fact is,” I added, “I had a sort of notion that if you married anybody in one of Harley’s books, if Harley had his own way it would be to the man who—who tells the sto—”
A loud noise interrupted my remark and I started up in alarm, and in an instant I found myself back in my rooms in town once more. The little mountain house near Lake George, with its interesting and beautiful guest, had faded from sight, and I realized that somebody was hammering with a stick upon my door.
“Hello there!” I cried. “What’s wanted?”
“It’s I—Harley,” came Stuart’s voice. “Let me in.”
I unlocked the door and he entered. The brown of Barnegat had gone, and he was his broken self again.
“Well,” I said, trying to ignore his appearance, which really shocked me, “how’s the book? Got it done?”
He sank into a chair with a groan.
“Hang the book!—it’s all up with that; I’m going to Chadwick to-morrow and call the thing off,” he said. “She won’t work—two weeks’ steady application gone for nothing.”
“Oh, come!” I said; “not as bad as that.”