He looked at the girl before him with a new expression, an expression of sheer curiosity.  It seemed to him well-nigh incredible that any human being could be so unjust and so blind.  Yet he knew her to be, in other matters, one of the fairest of all women, just and tender and thoughtful and true.  He knew that she prided herself upon her cool impartiality of judgment.  He shook his head with a little sigh and ceased to wonder any more.  It was beyond him.  He became aware that he ought to say something, and he said: 

“Yes.  Yes, I—­see.  I see what you mean.  Yes, Hartley did all you say.  I hadn’t meant to rob Hartley of the credit he deserves.  I suppose you’re right.”

He was possessed of a sudden longing to get away out of that room, and he rose to his feet.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think I’d better go.  This is—­well, it’s a bit of a facer, you see.  I want to think it over.  Perhaps to-morrow—­you don’t mind?”

He saw a swift relief flash into Miss Benham’s eyes, but she murmured a few words of protest that had a rather perfunctory sound.  Ste. Marie shook his head.

“Thanks!  I won’t stay,” said he.  “Not just now.  I—­think I’d better go.”

He had a confused realization of platitudinous adieus, of a silly formality of speech, and he found himself in the hall.  Once he glanced back and Miss Benham was standing where he had left her, looking after him with a calm and unimpassioned face.  He thought that she looked rather like a very beautiful statue.

The butler came to him to say that Mr. Stewart would be glad if he would look in before leaving the house, and so he went up-stairs and knocked at old David’s door.  He moved like a man in a dream, and the things about him seemed to be curiously unreal and rather far away, as they seem sometimes in a fever.

He was admitted at once, and he found the old man sitting up in bed, clad in one of his incredibly gorgeous mandarin’s jackets—­plum-colored satin this time, with peonies—­overflowing with spirits and good-humor.  His grandson sat in a chair near at hand.  The old man gave a shout of welcome: 

“Ah, here’s Jason at last, back from Colchis!  Welcome home to—­whatever the name of the place was!  Welcome home!”

He shook Ste. Marie’s hand with hospitable violence, and Ste. Marie was astonished to see upon what a new lease of life and strength the old man seemed to have entered.  There was no ingratitude or misconception here, certainly.  Old David quite overwhelmed his visitor with thanks and with expressions of affection.

“You’ve saved my life among other things!” he said, in his gruff roar.  “I was ready to go, but, by the Lord, I’m going to stay awhile longer now!  This world’s a better place than I thought—­a much better place.”  He shook a heavily waggish head.  “If I didn’t know,” said he, “what your reward is to be for what you’ve done, I should be in despair over it all, because there is nothing else in the world that would be anything like adequate.  You’ve been making sure of the reward down-stairs, I dare say?  Eh, what?  Yes?”