Fisher turned away from her, and stood before the window in dead silence.  There was a long, quiet pause.  Then a sudden sound made him swing swiftly round and stride to the door to turn the key.  The next moment he was stooping over Molly, who had sunk down on the hearth-rug and was sobbing terrible, anguished sobs.

He lifted her to a chair with no fuss of words, and knelt beside her, stroking her hair, comforting her, with something of a woman’s tenderness.

Molly suffered him passively, and the first wild agony of her trouble spent itself unrestrained on his shoulder.  Then she grew calmer, and presently begged him in a whisper to read the message which Charlie had left behind him.

For a moment Fisher hesitated; then, as she repeated her desire, he took up the scrawl and deliberately read it through.  It had evidently been written immediately after his interview with the writer.

“Dear Molly,” the note said, “It’s all right with Fisher, so don’t you worry yourself!  I clear out to-morrow, so that there may be no awkwardness, but we haven’t quarrelled, he and I. Forget all about this business!  It’s been a mistake from start to finish.  I ought to have known that I was only fit to be a looker-on when I fell at the first fence.  You put your money on Fisher and you’ll never lose a halfpenny!  I’m nothing but a humble spectator, and I wish you—­and him also—­the best of luck.  If I might be permitted, to offer a little, serious, fatherly advice, it would be this: 

“Don’t let yourself get dazzled by the outside shine of any man’s actions!  A man isn’t necessarily a hero because he doesn’t run away.  It is the true-hearted, steady-going chaps like Fisher who keep the world wagging.  They are the solid material.  The others are only a sort of trimming stuck on for effect and torn off when the time comes for something new.  So marry the man you love, Molly, and forget that anyone else ever made a fool of himself for your sweet sake!

     “Your friend for ever,

     “Charlie.”

Thus ended, with a simplicity sublime, the few words of fatherly advice which as a legacy this boy had left behind him.

Fisher laid the note reverently aside and spoke with a great gentleness.

“Tell me, dear,” he said, “will it make it any easier for you if I go away?  If so—­you have only to say so.”

The words cost him greater resolution than any he had ever uttered.  Yet he said them without apparent effort.

Molly did not answer him for many seconds.  Her head drooped a little lower.

“I have been—­dazzled,” she said at last, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice.  “I do not know if I shall ever make you understand.”

“You need never attempt it, Molly,” he answered very steadily.  “I make no claim upon you.  Simply, I am yours to keep or to throw away.  Which are you going to do?”