"Oh, I guess it'll be all right. They're merely a package of old letters."
He walked over to where several coats were hanging, and pointed a scoured hand at one. "I've just washed up for another operation, so I can't take them out for you. You'll find them in the inside pocket."
David transferred the yellow packet to the inside pocket of his own coat. He had thanked the surgeon and said good-bye, when the fear seized him that perhaps the dead woman might after all not be Lillian Drew. He turned back and asked if he might see the body. The surgeon led him into the operating-room where two attendants were starting to push out a wheeled operating-table, burdened with a sheeted figure. The surgeon stopped them, and at his order a nurse drew back the sheet from the head. David gave a single glance at the face. His fear left him.
With the letters buttoned inside his coat he left the hospital and set out for Helen's, on whom he had promised to call that afternoon. At this moment he had not for Lillian Drew that understanding, sympathy even, which he was later to attain; he did not then consider that she, too, might have had a very different ending had her beginning been more fortunately inspired. For such a sympathy he was too dazed by the narrowness of his escape from vindication and of the Mission's from destruction. Had the letters been signed by Morton's full name, then the house surgeon, in trying to learn who Philip Morton was, would certainly have started a scandal there would have been no stopping. But now his secret was safe: Lillian Drew would menace him no more, and the two women who knew his story would keep it forever locked in their hearts.
He chanced to reach the Chambers's home at the same moment as Mr. Chambers, who bowed coldly and passed upstairs. As Mr. Chambers went by the drawing-room door he saw Helen and Mr. Allen at the tea-table. He entered and shook hands cordially with Mr. Allen.
"How are you, Allen?" he said. "But I just stopped for a second. I'll try and see you before you go."
At this moment a footman handed Helen David's card. "Don't you think, Helen," her father asked quietly, "that you're letting that fellow make himself very much of a bore?" Without waiting for an answer he passed out.
"Will you show Mr. Aldrich up," Helen said to the waiting footman. Mr. Allen had begun, before her father's entrance, to draw near the question he had come to put. She shrunk from answering it, so David's coming was doubly welcome.
"A minute, please," Mr. Allen called to the servant. "Now, Helen, is this treating me fair?" he demanded in a whisper. "You know I want to see you. Can't you send down word that you're engaged?"
"He's in the house—I'm here—I can't deny him," she said rapidly. "Besides, for a long while I've been wanting you to meet him. Show him up, Mitchell."