months. During this period he was again and again on the point of throwing up the whole enterprise, but the completed manuscript proved, at last, the staunchness of his love for Chloë.
The Archdeacon, who hadn't a scrap of confidence in Dunkle, had insisted that his manuscript should be brought back to him, so soon as the work of copying it should have been completed. "For," he told Dunkle, "unless I am allowed with my own hands to put that bundle of papers on the fire, I shall never know when you won't be turning up to blackmail me. Only if I have seen, with my own eyes, the flames consume my manuscript, only then shall I be able to bid you defiance."
Dunkle had conceded the point. He had no wish to betray this man who was going to become his father-in-law. He
