and she's
going to bring them over for me on her way home."

"You'd better go to sleep," said Patricia, smoothing the white brow
with deft fingers. "I'll keep everything quiet, so that you can sleep
it off as you used to be able to. I hope you'll be all right in the
morning."

Elinor nodded mutely, and Patricia, pulling down the shades so that the
street light did not flicker on the pale wall, tiptoed out of the room,
to caution Judith and await the coming of Doris Leighton.

Dinner was long over, Judith's lessons done and bed-time come, when at
last Patricia hurried down to the long parlor where Doris sat in the
dim light.

She was very pale and tired looking, but as graceful and charming as
ever. She inquired after Elinor with a profuse sympathy that more than
satisfied the warm-hearted Patricia, whose compassion stirred at her
look of fatigue.

"You ought to be taking more care of yourself," she said, with concern.
"You're tired to death, and yet you come out of your way to see about
Elinor. You look dreadfully fagged."

Doris smiled wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and
opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed
another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an
imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still
gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently
shut out from her real confidence.

"I've been working on my panel study," she said, with an effort at
brightness. "I don't seem to get it finished to my liking, and the
time is getting perilously short, you know."

Patricia looked her surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't started it
yet. You said you'd rush it off at the last moment without a bit of
trouble."

"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going
out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave
tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I
shan't see you perhaps before I go."

She said good-night absently, and Patricia, watching her hurry down
the frosty street, found herself wondering at the subtle barrier that
she could feel so keenly, while she yet tried to disbelieve.

"I wonder what she was going to say?" she thought, as she went slowly
up to Judith's room, where she was to spend the night. "It can't be my
imagination this time, for she actually did start to speak, and then
stopped." She frowned and then her face