"Walter and I thoroughly understand each other.

He's not surprised at anything I do." "Ah!" laughed the sightless man, "he's already beginning to understand the feminine perverseness, eh?
Well, my child, dine here with me if you wish, by all means.

Tell Hill to lay the table for two.

We have lots of work to do afterwards." So the bell was rung again and Hill was informed that Miss Gabrielle would dine with her father in the library.
Then they turned again to the Baronet's mysterious private affairs; and when she had seated herself at the typewriter and re-read the reports--confidential reports they were, but framed in a manner which only the old man himself could understand--he dictated to her cryptic replies, the true nature of which were to her a mystery.
The last of the reports, brief and unsigned, read as follows:-- "Mon petit garcon est tres gravement malade, et je supplie Dieu a genoux de ne pas me punir si severement, de ne pas me prendre mon enfant.
"D'apres le dernier bulletin du Professeur Knieberger, il a la fievre scarlatine, et l'issue de la maladie est incertaine.

Je ne quitte plus son chevet.