e:--

MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUND
DEAD IN THE SEINE

_Face Disfigured by Water, but
Friends in Paris Identify Social
Leader by Clothes upon
the Body_

Mrs. De Peyster sank without a word into a chair, and her face
duplicated the ashen hue of Matilda's.

Matilda likewise collapsed into a chair. "Oh, isn't it awful, ma'am,"
she moaned.

"So--so it's I--that's--that's dead!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.

"Yes, ma'am. But that isn't all. I--I thought I'd break it to you
gently. That was over a week ago. Since then--"

"You mean," breathed the marble lips of Mrs. De Peyster, "that there's
something more?"

"Yes, ma'am. Oh, the papers have been full of it. It's been a
tremendous sensation!"

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.

"And Mr. Jack, since you died without a will, is your heir. And, since
he is now the head of the De Peyster family, the first thing he did on
hearing the news was to arrange by cable to have your body sent here."

Mrs. De Peyster, as though galvanized, half rose from her chair.

"You mean--my body--is coming here?"

"I said I was trying to break it to you gently," moaned Matilda.
"It's--it's already here. The ship that brought it is now docking.
Your funeral--"

"My funeral!"

"It takes place in the drawing-room, this morning. Oh, isn't it awful!
But, perhaps, ma'am, if you could see what beautiful flowers your
friends have sent--"

But Mrs. De Peyster had very softly sunk back into her chair.

[Illustration: "SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"]

CHAPTER XXI

THE VEILED LADY

As soon as that huddled mass of womanhood that was Mrs. De Peyster had
become sufficiently reanimated to be able to think, its first thought
came in the form of an unuttered wail.

She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home again!

Or if she did come home, what a scandal! A scandal out-scandalizing
anything of which she had ever dreamed! A scandal worse ten times than
the very grave itself!

With loose face and glazed eyes she stared at Matilda while the latter
stammered out disjointed details of the past week's happenings. As
for Mr. Jack's lark in dwelling surreptitiously with his wife in his
mother's house, not a breath of that had reached the public. With Mr.
Pyecroft's aid, and Judge Harvey's, he had managed this well. He had
told the reporters that he had been quietly married over three weeks
before, that he and his wife had been living in seclusion, and that on
lea