He began speaking quietly.

“I can’t tell you now how I found out all this.  It is a long story; you will hear it all some day.  But the facts are all clear.  I have been to New York and seen Tim Queed.  It is—­strange, is it not?  Do you remember that afternoon in my office, when I showed you the letters from him?  We little thought—­”

“Oh me!” said Sharlee.  “Oh me!”

She rose hastily and walked away from him, unable to bear the look on his face.  For a pretense of doing something, she went to the fire and poked aimlessly at the glowing coals.

As on the afternoon of which he spoke, waves of pity for the little Doctor’s worse than fatherlessness swept through her; only these waves were a thousand times bigger and stormier than those.  How hardly he himself had taken his sonship she read in the strange sadness of his face.  She dared not let him see how desperately sorry for him she felt; the most perfunctory phrase might betray her.  Her knowledge of his falseness stood between them like a wall; blindly she struggled to keep it staunch, not letting her rushing pity undermine and crumble it.  He had been false to her, like his father.  Father and son, they had deceived and betrayed her; honor and truth were not in them.

“So you see,” the son was saying, “I have a close personal interest in this question of the money.  Naturally it—­means a good deal to me to—­have as much of it as possible restored.  Of course there is a great deal which—­he took, and which—­we are not in position to restore at present.  I will explain later what is to be done about that—­”

“Oh, don’t!” she begged.  “I never want to see or hear of it again.”

Suddenly she turned upon him, aware that her self-control was going, but unable for her life to repress the sympathy for him which welled up overwhelmingly from her heart.

“Won’t you tell me something more about it?  Please do!  Where is he?  Have you seen him—?”

“I cannot tell you—­”

“Oh, I will keep your confidence.  You asked me if I would.  I will—­won’t you tell me?  Is he here—­in the city—?”

“You must not ask me these questions,” he said with some evidence of agitation.

But even as he spoke, he saw knowledge dawn painfully on her face.  His shelter, after all, was too small; once her glance turned that way, once her mind started upon conjectures, discovery had been inevitable.

“Oh!” she cried, in a choked voice....  “It is Professor Nicolovius!”

He looked at her steadily; no change passed over his face.  When all was said, he was glad to have the whole truth out; and he knew the secret to be as safe with her as with himself.

“No one must know,” he said sadly, “until his death.  That is not far away, I think.”

She dropped into a chair, and suddenly buried her face in her hands.

Surface’s son had risen with her, but he did not resume his seat.  He stood looking down at her bowed head, and the expression in his eyes, if she had looked up and captured it, might have taken her completely by surprise.