id not attempt to put out his hand to take the
one which Kate offered in greeting. Instead he laid it over Marcia's
little trembling one on his arm as if to steady it.

"We have met before," said David briefly in an impenetrable tone, and
turning passed out of the room to make way for the Brentwoods who were
behind him.

Hannah scarcely treated the Brentwoods with decency, so vexed was she with
the way things were turning out. To think that David should so completely
baffle her. She turned an annoyed look at Kate, who flashed her blue eyes
contemptuously as if to blame Hannah.

Soon the whole little gathering were in the dining-room and wide hall
being served with Grandmother Heath's fried chicken and currant jelly,
delicate soda biscuits, and fruit cake baked months before and left to
ripen.

The ordeal through which they were passing made David and Marcia feel, as
they sat down, that they would not be able to swallow a mouthful, but
strangely enough they found themselves eating with relish, each to
encourage the other perhaps, but almost enjoying it, and feeling that they
had not yet met more than they would be able to withstand.

Kate was seated on the other side of the dining-room, by Hannah, and she
watched the two incessantly with that half merry contemptuous look, toying
with her own food, and apparently waiting for their acting to cease and
David to put on his true character. She never doubted for an instant that
they were acting.

The wedding supper was over at last. The guests crowded out to the front
stoop to bid good-bye to the happy bridegroom and cross-looking bride, who
seemed as if she left the gala scene reluctantly.

Marcia, for the instant, was separated from David, who stepped down upon
the grass and stood to one side to let the bridal party pass. The minister
was at the other side. Marcia had slipped into the shelter of Aunt
Amelia's black silk presence and wished she might run out the back door
and away home.

Suddenly a shimmer of gold with the sunlight through it caught her gaze,
and a glimpse of sheeny purple. There, close behind David, standing upon
the top step, quite unseen by him, stood her sister Kate.

Marcia's heart gave a quick thump and seemed to stop, then went painfully
laboring on. She stood quite still watching for the moment to come when
David would turn around and see Kate that she might look into his face and
read there what was written.

Hannah had been put carefully