r.
Then--we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, when
mother was not well--she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and it
always uses her up--we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them
there, the brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, Harry
Pinckney Sullivan."

"I know. Go on."

"Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were very
kind to me. I--I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me,
partly--partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed to
avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of the
other men I knew had--had--"

"I know that, too," I said bitterly, and moved away from her a trifle.
I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knew
what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment.

"It was early and there were few people around--none that I cared about.
And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt as
though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtis
arranged drives and picnics, I--I slipped away and went. I suppose you
won't believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, and
I--well, I have paid up, I think."

"What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?" I demanded. I had got up and
was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely at
a bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way.

"Very handsome--as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect."

I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairly
sagging with jealous rage.

"When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been
going about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful
time. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that to
you?"

"Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan," I said, with a cheerless
attempt at levity. "Go on."

"If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming
letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me to
visit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not go
where I wished, and so--I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt's in the
country, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. You
see I warned you it would be an unpleasant story."

I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy of
the last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan had
come across the sands just