cess of trembling shook her.
She tried to smile and knew that her lips were twisting in a ghastly
grin.

Mrs. Brace moved slowly to and fro on the armless rocker, her swift,
appraising eyes taking in her visitor's distress. The smooth face wore
its customary, inexpressive calm. Lucille, striving desperately to
arrive at some opinion of what the woman thought, saw that she might as
well try to find emotion in a statue.

"I--I," the girl finally attained a quick, flurried utterance, "want to
thank you for--for having this--this talk with me."

"What do you want to talk about, Miss Sloane?"

The low, metallic voice was neither friendly nor hostile. It expressed,
more than anything else, a sardonic, bullying self-sufficiency.

It both angered and encouraged Lucille. She perceived the futility of
polite, introductory phrases here; she could go straight to her purpose,
be brutally frank. She gave Mrs. Brace a brilliant, disarming smile, a
proclamation of fellowship. Her confidence was restored.

"I'm sure we can talk sensibly together, Mrs. Brace," she explained,
dissembling her indignation. "We can get down to business, at once."

"What business?" inquired the older woman, with some of the manner
Hastings had seen, an air of lying in wait.

"I said, on the 'phone, it was something of advantage to you--didn't I?"

"Yes; you said that."

"And, of course, I want something from you."

"Naturally."

"I'll tell you what it is." Lucille spoke now with cool precision, as
yet untouched by the horror she had expected to feel. "It's a matter of
money."

Mrs. Brace's tongue came out to the edge of the thin line of her lips.
Her nostrils quivered, once, to the sharply indrawn breath. Her eyes
were more furtive.

"Money?" she echoed. "For what?"

"There's no good of my making long explanations, Mrs. Brace," Lucille
said. "I've read the newspapers, every line of them, about--our trouble.
And I saw the references to your finances, your lack of money."

"Yes?" Mrs. Brace's right hand lay on her lap; the thumb of it began to
move against the forefinger rapidly, the motion a woman makes in
feeling the texture of cloth--or the trick of a bank clerk separating
paper money.

"Yes. I read, also, what you said about the tragedy. Today I noticed
that the only note of newness in the articles in the papers came from
you--from your saying that 'in a few days, three or four at the
outside'--that was your language, I'm quite sure--y