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Rh But he paused a moment, and took off his hat and fanned himself. "Let me perfectly understand," I said at last. "You've asked Madame Blumenthal to be your wife?"

"The wife of my intelligent choice."

"And does she consent?"

"She asks three days to decide."

"Call it four! She has known your secret since this morning. I 'm bound to let you know I told her."

"So much the better!" cried Pickering, without apparent resentment or surprise. "It's not a brilliant offer for such a woman, and in spite of what I have at stake I feel that it would be brutal to press her."

"What does she say," I asked in a moment, "to your breaking your promise?"

Pickering was too much in love for false shame. "She tells me," he answered bravely, "that she loves me too much to find courage to condemn me. She agrees with me that I have a right to be happy. I ask no exemption from the common law. What I claim is simply freedom to try to be!"

Of course I was puzzled; it was not in that fashion that I had expected Madame Blumenthal to make use of my information. But the matter now was quite out of my hands, and all I could do was