“I wonder if Leo will ever know how kind you have been to every one?”

This was a happy day for that household, though their joy was subdued; for a shadow of possibilities still hung over them.  And perhaps it was the knowledge that now there was every probability of the greater danger being removed that caused a certain exaggeration of minor troubles and brought them to the front.  When Mangan begged his betrothed to go out for a five-minutes’ stroll in the Park before lunch, he found, after all, that it was not his and her own affairs that claimed their chief attention.

“I don’t know what to do, Francie,” he said, ruefully.  “I’m in a regular fix, and no mistake.  Here is Nina—­it seems more natural to call her Nina, doesn’t it?—­well, she talks of going away to-morrow, now that Linn is in a fair way to get better.  She is quite aware that he does not know she has been in London, or that he has seen her; and now she wishes that he should never be told; and that she may get safely away again, and matters be just as they were before.  I don’t quite understand her, perhaps; she is very proud, for one thing, but she is very much in love with him—­poor thing! she has tried to conceal it as well as ever she could; but you must have seen it, Francie—­a woman’s eyes must have seen it—­”

“Oh, yes, Maurice!” his companion said; then she added, “And—­and don’t you think Linn is just as much in love with her?  I am sure of it!  It’s just dreadful to think of her going away again—­these two being separated as they were before—­and Linn perhaps fretting himself into another illness, though never speaking a word—­”

“But how am I to ask her to stay?” Maurice demanded, as if in appeal to her woman’s wit.  “There’s Miss Burgoyne.  Linn himself could only ask Nina to stay on one condition—­and Miss Burgoyne makes it impossible.”

“Then,” said Francie, grown bold, “if I were you, Maurice, I would go straight to Miss Burgoyne, and I would say to her, ’My friend Lionel is in love with another woman; he never was in love with you at all; now will you marry him?’”

[Illustration:  “Maurice walked back until he found a gate, entered, and went forward and overtook her.”]

“Yes, very pretty,” he said, moodily.  “The first thing she would do would be to call a policeman and get me locked up as a raging lunatic.  And what would Linn say to me about such interference when he came to hear of it?  No, I must leave them to manage their own affairs, however they may turn out; the only thing I should like in the meantime would be for Nina to see Linn before she goes.  That’s all; and that I think I could manage.”

“How, Maurice?”