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Rh She laughed out at his look. "Are you afraid of the love that kills?"

He grew singularly grave. "Will it kill?"

"Great passions have!"—she was highly amused.

But he could only stare. "Is it a great passion?"

"Surely—when so many feel it!"

He was fairly bewildered. "But how many?"

She reckoned them up. "Let's see. If you count them all"

"'All'?" Clement Yule gasped.

She looked at him, in turn, slightly mystified. "I see. You knock off some. About half?"

It was too obscure—he broke down. "Whom on earth are you talking about?"

"Why, the electors"

"Of Gossage?"—he leaped at it. "Oh!"

"I got the whole thing up—there are six thousand. It's such a fine figure!" said Mrs. Gracedew.

He had sharply passed from her, to cover his mistake, and it carried him half round the hall. Then, as if aware that this pause itself compromised him, he came back confusedly and with her last words in his ear. "Has she a fine figure?"