“It was more than love,” he answered. “It was idolatry. God punished me for it. He was a hard God, my God.” Carleton himself never interrupted them. Indeed, one might have thought he was not listening, so engrossed he appeared to be in the pile of letters and telegrams that lay waiting for him on his desk. When they had finished he would ask them questions, still with his attention fixed apparently upon the paper in his hand. Then, looking up for the first time, he would run off curt instructions, much in the tone of a Commander-in-Chief giving orders for an immediate assault; and, finishing abruptly, return to his correspondence. When the last, as it transpired, had closed the door behind him, he swung his chair round and faced her.!

“Poor dear lady,” he said, “all those years! And poor Jack Allway.” He seemed to be talking to himself. Suddenly he turned to her. “How is the dear fellow?” he asked. “Couldn’t you get enough money together to start something quickly,” she continued, the idea suddenly coming to her. “I think I could help you. It wouldn’t matter its being something small to begin with. So long as it was entirely your own, and couldn’t be taken away from you. You’d soon work it up.”

The doctor had been whispering to one of the bearers. He had the face of an old man, but his shoulders were broad and he looked sturdy. He nodded, and beckoned Joan to follow him up the slippery steps. “It doesn’t matter, dearie,” she explained. “They know, if they find it open, that I’m in.” “It was more than love,” he answered. “It was idolatry. God punished me for it. He was a hard God, my God.”