“How do you know what I want?” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Errol.  “I only surmise.”

“And you think that wise?  You are not afraid of tripping up in the dark?”

She stretched out her hands to him in sudden earnest entreaty.  “Nap, tell me that it isn’t Anne Carfax, and I’ll bless you with my dying breath!”

But he looked at her without emotion.  He took her hands after a moment, but it was the merest act of courtesy.  He did not hold them.

“And if it were?” he said slowly, his hard eyes fixed on hers.

She choked back her agitation with the tears running down her face.  “Then God help Lucas—­and me too—­for it will be his death-blow!”

“Lucas?” said Nap.

He did not speak as if vitally interested, yet she answered as if compelled.

“He loves her.  He can’t do without her.  She has been his mainstay all through the winter.  He would have died without her.”

Nap passed over the information as though it were of no importance.  “He is no better then?” he asked.

“Yes, he is better.  But he has been real sick.  No one knows what he has come through, and there is that other operation still to be faced.  I’m scared to think of it.  He hasn’t the strength of a mouse.  It’s only the thought of Anne that makes him able to hold on.  I can see it in his eyes day after day—­the thought of winning out and making her his wife.”

Again he passed the matter over.  “When does Capper come again?”

“Very soon now.  In two or three weeks.  There was a letter from him to-day, Lucas was quite excited about it, but I fancy it upset dear Anne some.  You see—­she loves him too.”

There fell a silence.  Mrs. Errol wiped her eyes and strove to compose herself.  Somehow he had made her aware of the futility of tears.  She wondered what was passing in his mind as he sat there sphinx-like, staring straight before him.  Had she managed to reach his heart, she wondered?  Or was there perchance no heart behind that inscrutable mask to reach?  Yet she had always believed that after his own savage fashion he had loved Lucas.

Suddenly he rose.  “If you have quite done with me, alma mater, I’ll go.”

She looked up at him apprehensively.  “What are you going to do?”

He smiled abruptly.  “I am going to get a drink.”

“And what then?” she asked feverishly.  “Nap, oh, Nap, she is staying in the house.  Won’t you go without seeing her?”

“I have seen her already,” drawled Nap.

“You have seen her?”

His smile became contemptuous.  “What of it?  Do you seriously suppose she is the only woman in the world I care to look at?”

“I don’t know what to think,” cried Mrs. Errol.  “I only know that you hold Luke’s fate between your hands.”

He was already at the door.  He turned and briefly bowed.  “You flatter me, alma mater!” he said.