the other.  Courageous of Tommy, was it not?  But observe the end.  He was left in the dining-room to take charge of his captives until morning, and by and by he was exhorting them in such noble language to mend their ways that they took the measure of him, and so touching were their family histories that Tommy wept and untied their cords and showed them out at the front door and gave them ten shillings each, and the one who begged for the honour of shaking hands with him also took his watch.  Thus did Tommy and Lady Pippinworth become friends, but it was not this that sent him so often to her house to tea.  She was a beautiful woman, with a reputation for having broken many hearts without damaging her own.  He thought it an interesting case.

CHAPTER XXVI

GRIZEL ALL ALONE

It was Tommy who was the favoured of the gods, you remember, not Grizel.

Elspeth wondered to see her, after the publication of that book, looking much as usual.  “You know how he loved you now,” she said, perhaps a little reproachfully.

“Yes,” Grizel answered, “I know; I knew before the book came out.”

“You must be sorry for him?”

Grizel nodded.

“But proud of him also,” Elspeth said.  “You have a right to be proud.”

“I am as proud,” Grizel replied, “as I have a right to be.”

Something in her voice touched Elspeth, who was so happy that she wanted everyone to be happy.  “I want you to know, Grizel,” she said warmly, “that I don’t blame you for not being able to love him; we can’t help those things.  Nor need you blame yourself too much, for I have often heard him say that artists must suffer in order to produce beautiful things.”

“But I cannot remember,” Elspeth had to admit, with a sigh, to David, “that she made any answer to that, except ‘Thank you.’”

Grizel was nearly as reticent to David himself.  Once only did she break down for a moment in his presence.  It was when he was telling her that the issue of the book had been stopped.

“But I see you know already,” he said.  “Perhaps you even know why—­though he has not given any sufficient reason to Elspeth.”

David had given his promise, she reminded him, not to ask her any questions about Tommy.

“But I don’t see why I should keep it,” he said bluntly.

“Because you dislike him,” she replied.

“Grizel,” he declared, “I have tried hard to like him.  I have thought and thought about it, and I can’t see that he has given me any just cause to dislike him.”

“And that,” said Grizel, “makes you dislike him more than ever.”

“I know that you cared for him once,” David persisted, “and I know that he wanted to marry you—­”

But she would not let him go on.  “David,” she said, “I want to give up my house, and I want you to take it.  It is the real doctor’s house of Thrums, and people in need of you still keep ringing me up of nights.  The only door to your surgery is through my passage; it is I who should be in lodgings now.”