It was late when the Doge finished his reading, and he finished it with the page of the last book, where the fine handwriting stopped at the edge of the blank white space of the future.  An old desire, ever strong with Mary, which she had never quite had the temerity to express, had become impelling under the influence of her father’s unusually long and silent preoccupation.

“Am I never to have a glimpse of that treasure?  Am I never, never to read your diary?” she asked.

The Doge drew his tufted eyebrows together in utter astonishment.

“What!  What, Mary!  Why, Mary, I might preach a lesson on the folly of feminine curiosity.  Do you think I would ask to see your diary?”

“But I don’t keep one.”

“Hoo-hoo-hoo!” The Doge was blowing out his lips in an ado of deprecatory nonsense.  “Don’t keep one?  Have you lost your memory?”

“I had it a minute ago—­yes,” after an instant’s playful consideration, “I am sure that I have it now.”

“Then, everybody with a memory certainly keeps a diary.  Would you want me to read all the foolish things you had ever thought?  Do you think I would want to?”

“No,” she answered.

“There you are, then!” declared the Doge victoriously, as he rose, slipping a rubber band with a forbidding snap over the last book.  “And this is all stupid personal stuff—­but mine own!”

There was an unconscious sigh of weariness as he took up the thumbed leather volumes.  He was haggard.  “Mine own” had given him no pleasure that evening.  All the years of his life seemed to rest heavily upon him for a silent moment.  Mary feared that she had hurt him by her request.

“You have read so much you will scarcely do any writing to-night,” she ventured.

“Yes, I will add a few more lines—­the spirit is in me—­a few more days to the long record,” he said, absently, then, after a pause, suddenly, with a kind of suppressed force vibrating in his voice:  “Well, our Sir Chaps has gone.”

“As unceremoniously as he came,” she answered.

“It was terrible the way he broke Nogales’s wrist!” remarked the Doge narrowly.

“Terrible!” she assented as she folded her work, her head bent.

“Gone, and doubtless for good!” he continued, still watching her sharply.

“Very likely!” she answered carelessly without looking up.  “His vagarious playtime for this section is over.”

“Just it!  Just it!” the Doge exclaimed happily.

“And if Leddy overtakes him now, it’s his own affair!”

“Yes, yes!  He and his Wrath of God and Jag Ear are away to other worlds!”

“And other Leddys!”

“No doubt!  No doubt!” concluded the Doge, in high good humor, all the vexation of his diary seemingly forgotten as he left the room.