Page:Anstey--Tourmalin's time cheques.djvu/119

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Foil and Counterfoil
115

tion on the other. It is a duty he cannot and dare not evade, under penalty of forfeiting the confidence of his readers.

Peter Tourmalin did draw more Time Cheques, he did go back to the Boomerang, and it would be useless to assert the contrary. We may be able to rehabilitate him to some extent before this story concludes; at present, we can only follow his career with pain and disapproval.

Some allowances must be made for the peculiar nature of the case. To a person of Peter's natural inclination to the study of psychology, there was a strong fascination in watching the gradual unfolding and revelation of two characters so opposite and so interesting as those of Miss Tyrrell and Miss Davenport. That was the point of view he took himself, and it is difficult to say that such a plea is wholly without plausibility.

Then, too, he was intensely curious to know how it would all end, and he might ascertain that in the very next quarter of an hour he drew; there was absolutely no telling.

As for Sophia's threat, that soon lost all terrors for him. She would abandon him, no