rstand each other,
Mrs. Brace, what do you say?"

Mrs. Brace thought again.

"How much?" she asked at last, her lips thickening. "How much, Miss
Sloane, do you think my silence is worth?"

Lucille took a roll of bills from her handbag. The woman's chair slid
forward, answering to the forward--leaning weight of her new posture.
She was lightly rubbing her palms together, as, with head a little
bowed, she stared at the money in the younger woman's hand.

"I have here five hundred dollars," Lucille began.

"What!"

Mrs. Brace said that roughly; and, in violent anger, drew back, the
legs of her chair grating on the floor.

For a moment Lucille gazed at her, uncomprehending.

"Oh!" she said, uncertainly. "You mean--it isn't enough?"

"Enough!" Mrs. Brace's rage and disappointment grew, her lowered brows a
straight line close down to her eyes.

"But I could get more!" Lucille exclaimed, struggling with disgust.
"This," she added, with ready invention, "can serve as a part payment, a
promise of----"

"Ah-h!" the older woman exclaimed. "That's different. I misunderstood."

She put down the signals of her wrath, succeeding in that readjustment
so promptly that Lucille stared at her in undisguised amazement.

"You must pardon me, Miss Sloane. I thought you were making me the
victim of your ridicule, some heartless joke."

"Then, we can come to an agreement? That is, if this money is the
first----"

She broke the sentence. Mrs. Brace had put up her hand, and now held her
head to one side, listening.

There was a step clearly audible outside, in the main hall. The next
moment the doorbell rang. They sat motionless. When the bell rang
again, Mrs. Brace informed her with a look that she would not answer it.

But the ringing continued, became a prolonged jangle. It got on
Lucille's already strained nerves.

"Suppose you slip into the bedroom," Mrs. Brace whispered.

"Oh, no!" Lucille whispered back.

She was weighed down by black premonition; she hoped Mrs. Brace would
not open the door.

The bell rang again.

"You'll have to!" Mrs. Brace said at last. "I won't let anybody in. I
have to answer it!"

"You'll send them away--whoever it is--at once?"

"At once. I don't want you seen here, any more than you want to be
seen!"

Lucille started toward the bedroom. At the first step she took, Mrs.
Brace put a hand on her arm.

"That money!" she demanded, in a low whisper. "I'll take it."

"And do what I as