“Yes, more money; a fair allowance has always been sent to her.  Keredec has interviewed her notary and she wants a settlement, naming a sum actually larger than the whole estate amounts to.  There were colossal expenditures and equally large shrinkages; what he has left is invested in English securities and is not a fortune, but of course she won’t believe that and refuses to budge until this impossible settlement is made.  You can imagine about how competent such a man as Keredec would be to deal with the situation.  In the mean time, his ward is in so dreadful a state of horror and grief I am afraid it is possible that his mind may really give way, for it was not in a normal condition, of course, though he’s perfectly sane, as I tell you.  If it should,” I concluded, with some bitterness, “I suppose Keredec will be still prating upliftingly on the saving of his soul!”

“When was it that Louise saw him?”

“Ah, that,” I said, “is where Keredec has been a poet and a dreamer indeed.  It was his plan that they should meet.”

“You mean he brought this wreck of Harman, these husks and shreds of a man, down here for Louise to see?” Ward cried incredulously.  “Oh, monstrous!”

“No,” I answered.  “Only insane.  Not because there is anything lacking in Oliver—­in Harman, I mean—­for I think that will be righted in time, but because the second marriage makes it a useless cruelty that he should have been allowed to fall in love with his first wife again.  Yet that was Keredec’s idea of a ‘beautiful restoration,’ as he calls it!”

“There is something behind all this that you don’t know,” said Ward slowly.  “I’ll tell you after I’ve seen this Keredec.  When did the man make you his confidant?”

“Last night.  Most of what I learned was as much a revelation to his victim as it was to me.  Harman did not know till then that the lady he had been meeting had been his wife, or that he had ever seen her before he came here.  He had mistaken her name and she did not enlighten him.”

“Meeting?” said Ward harshly.  “You speak as if—­”

“They have been meeting every day, George.”

“I won’t believe it of her!” he cried.  “She couldn’t—­”

“It’s true.  He spoke to her in the woods one day; I was there and saw it.  I know now that she knew him at once; and she ran away, but—­not in anger.  I shouldn’t be a very good friend of yours,” I went on gently, “if I didn’t give you the truth.  They’ve been together every day since then, and I’m afraid—­miserably afraid, Ward—­that her old feeling for him has been revived.”

I have heard Ward use an oath only two or three times in my life, and this was one of them.

“Oh, by God!” he cried, starting to his feet; “I should like to meet Professor Keredec!”

“I am at your service, my dear sir,” said a deep voice from the veranda.  And opening the door, the professor walked into the room.