“What can I do about it?” he asked.

“Take it down at once,” said Zora.

“But to exhibit the board was my sole reason for buying the place.”

“I’m very sorry,” she said gently, “but I can’t change my opinion.”

He cast a lingering glance at the board, and then turned.  “Let us go back to the house,” he said.

They walked a little way in silence.  As they passed by the shrubbery at the side of the house, he gravely pushed aside a wet, hanging branch for her to proceed dry.  Then he joined her again.

“You are angry with me for speaking so,” said Zora.

He stopped and looked at her, his eyes bright and clear.  “Do you think I’m a born fool?  Do you think I can’t tell loyalty when I see it, and am such an ass as not to prize it above all things?  It cost you a lot to say that to me.  You’re right.  I suppose I’ve lost sense of myself in the Cure.  When I think of it, I seem just to be the machine that is distributing it over the earth.  And that, too, I suppose, is why I want you.  The board is an abomination that cries to heaven.  It shall be instantly removed.  There!”

He held out his hand.  She gave him hers and he pressed it warmly.

“Are you going to give up the house now that it’s useless?” she asked.

“Do you wish me to?”

“What have I to do with it?”

“Zora Middlemist,” said he, “I’m a superstitious man in some things.  You have everything to do with my success.  Sooner than forfeit your respect I would set fire to every stick I possessed.  I would give up everything I had in the world except my faith in the Cure.”

“Wouldn’t you give up that—­if it were necessary so as to keep my respect?” she asked, prompted by the insane devil that lurks in the heart of even the most sainted of women and does not like its gracious habitat to be reckoned lower than a quack ointment.  It is the same little devil that makes a young wife ask her devoted husband which of the two he would save if she and his mother were drowning.  It is the little devil that is responsible for infinite mendacity on the part of men.  “Have you ever said that to another woman?” No; of course he hasn’t; and the wretch is instantly, perjured.  “Would you sell your soul for me?” “My immortal soul,” says the good fellow, instantaneously converted into an atrocious liar; and the little devil coos with satisfaction and curls himself up snugly to sleep.

But on this occasion the little devil had no success.

“I would give up my faith in the Cure for nothing in the wide world,” said Sypher gravely.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said Zora, in her frankest tone.  But the little devil asked her whether she was quite sure; whereupon she hit him smartly over the head and bade him lie down.  Her respect, however, for Sypher increased.

They were joined by Emmy and Septimus.

“I think I could manage it,” said the latter, “if I cut a hole a foot square in the board and fixed a magazine behind it.”