"And you were actin' as his secretary all that time?"
"Part of it."
"Of course that accounts."
"Accounts what for?" asked Lettice unwisely, with her little air of distraction.
"For the sympathetic insight you display," said Denis, now openly smiling. Lettice had chaffed him all her life; it was a new thing for him to turn the tables. "He swears it was you sent him back, and I believe him now. You've eased my mind quite a lot. He won't go under. He may knock out a warder or so, but he'll come through all right in the end—with such backin'!"
"Rubbish," said Lettice with acerb decision. She folded her work, got up, lighted a small paraffin lamp and carried it outside. Denis watched her hang it on the wall above the stairs.
"Is that a gentle hint to me to be off?" he asked, still smiling, as she reëntered. "Because if so I'm not takin' any. I'll go when my time comes, but there's ten minutes yet."
"It's not for you at all, it's for Dot O'Connor."
"For Dot O'Connor!"