n him to suffice for life, and none at all for words. Frances had it
in mind to suggest some milder remedy, but held her peace, feeling
that if Banjo survived the treatment he surely would be in no danger
from his hurt.

The door of Nola's room was open as Frances passed, and there was a
depression in the counterpane which told where the lost girl's mother
had knelt beside it and wet it with her tears. Frances wondered
whether she had prayed, lingering compassionately a moment in the
door.

The place was like Nola in its light and brightness and surface
comfort and assertive color notes of happiness, hung about with the
trophies of her short but victorious career among the hearts of men.
There were photographs of youths on dressing-table, chiffonier, and
walls, and flaring pennants of eastern universities and colleges.
Among the latter, as if it was the most triumphant trophy of them all,
there hung a little highland bonnet with a broken feather, of the
plaid Alan Macdonald had worn on the night of Nola's mask.

Frances went in for a nearer inspection, and lifted the little saucy
bit of headgear from its place in the decorations of Nola's wall.
There could be no doubting it; that was Alan Macdonald's bonnet, and
there was a bullet hole in it at the stem of the little feather. The
close-grazing lead had sheared the plume in two, and gone on its
stinging way straight through the bonnet.

An exclamation of tender pity rose above her breath. She fondled the
little headdress and pressed it to her bosom; she laid it against her
cheek and kissed it in consolation for its hurt--the woman's balsam
for all sufferings and heartbreaks, and incomparable among the
panaceas of all time.

In spite of her sympathy for Nola in her grave situation, facing or
undergoing what terrors no one knew, there was a bridling of
resentment against her in Frances' breast as she hung the marred
bonnet back in its place. It seemed to her that Nola had exulted over
both herself and Alan Macdonald when she had put his bonnet on her
wall, and that she had kept it there after the coming of Frances to
that house in affront to friendship and mockery of the hospitality
that she professed to extend.

Nola had asked her to that house so that she might see it hanging
there; she had arranged it and studied it with the cunning intent of
giving her pain. And how close that bullet had come to him! It must
have sheared his fair hair as it tore through and das