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 'Tell her? Why should I?'

'Well, just because you think she ought to know.'

'Of course I wouldn't tell her,' he laughed with a touch of impatience in his voice.

'Never?'

'Why certainly not! I've far too much to do, Nawn, than to go out of my way to interfere in other people's private affairs. That's your business. All I want is for you to pay that note as soon as possible, so I can get away on my trip.' He leaned and pressed a button. 'It will be much better for you, too, believe me—the whole affair all cleared up and off your conscience, and your insurance policy back in your own possession again.'

A private secretary appeared.

Felix stood up.

'Well, good-bye.' Mr. Bullard smiled at him genially. 'And good-luck. I guess we understand each other now.'

Felix walked slowly out of Mr. Bullard's office. He had taken a single bedroom in an inexpensive hotel back of the State House. He made his way back to that bedroom along various surface, subway, and elevated tracks, plodding the last half-mile on foot across the Boston Common—gray, dank, unbeautiful, with its patches of snow-like mould—overrun