ntence. She was excited by gossip
as by a stimulant. Her thin cheeks burned, her eyes blazed. "Mr. Lind,"
said Margaret, "Louisa told me, had turned out to be real bad. He got
into some money trouble, and then"--Margaret lowered her voice--"he was
arrested for taking a lot of money which didn't belong to him. Louisa
said he had been in some business where he handled a lot of other folks'
money, and he cheated the men who were in the business with him, and
he was tried, and Miss Viola, Louisa thinks, hid away somewhere so they
wouldn't call her to testify, and then he had to go to prison; but--"
Margaret hesitated.

"What is it?" asked Jane.

"Louisa thinks he died about a year and a half ago. She heard the lady
where she lives now talking about it. The lady used to know Miss Viola,
and she heard the lady say Mr. Lind had died in prison, that he couldn't
stand the hard life, and that Miss Viola had lost all her money through
him, and then"--Margaret hesitated again, and her mistress prodded
sharply--"Louisa said that she heard the lady say that she had thought
Miss Viola would marry him, but she hadn't, and she had more sense than
she had thought."

"Mrs. Longstreet would never for one moment have entertained the thought
of marrying Mr. Lind; he was young enough to be her grandson," said
Jane, severely.

"Yes, ma'am," said Margaret.

It so happened that Jane went to New York that day week, and at a
jewelry counter in one of the shops she discovered the amethyst comb.
There were on sale a number of bits of antique jewelry, the precious
flotsam and jetsam of old and wealthy families which had drifted, nobody
knew before what currents of adversity, into that harbor of sale for
all the world to see. Jane made no inquiries; the saleswoman volunteered
simply the information that the comb was a real antique, and the stones
were real amethysts and pearls, and the setting was solid gold, and
the price was thirty dollars; and Jane bought it. She carried her old
amethyst comb home, but she did not show it to anybody. She replaced it
in its old compartment in her jewelcase and thought of it with wonder,
with a hint of joy at regaining it, and with much sadness. She was still
fond of Viola Longstreet. Jane did not easily part with her loves. She
did not know where Viola was. Margaret had inquired of Louisa, who did
not know. Poor Viola had probably drifted into some obscure harbor of
life wherein she was hiding until life was o