e remarked. "Really, you manage very awkwardly, it
seems to me."

Laura caught her riding-crop in her right hand

"Don't you--don't you make me forget myself;" she cried, breathlessly.

"It seems to me," observed Page, quietly, "that you've done that long
since, yourself."

Laura flung the crop down and folded her arms.

"Now," she cried, her eyes blazing and rivetted upon Page's. "Now, just
what do you mean? Sit down," she commanded, flinging a hand towards a
chair, "sit down, and tell me just what you mean by all this."

But Page remained standing. She met her sister's gaze without wavering.

"Do you want me to believe," she answered, "that it made no difference
to you that Mr. Corthell's match safe was here?"

"Not the least," exclaimed Laura. "Not the least."

"Then why did you search for it so when you came in? I was not asleep
all of the time. I saw you."

"Because," answered Laura, "because--I--because--" Then all at once she
burst out afresh: "Have I got to answer to you for what I do? Have I
got to explain? All your life long you've pretended to judge your
sister. Now you've gone too far. Now I forbid it--from this day on.
What I do is my affair; I'll ask nobody's advice. I'll do as I please,
do you understand?" The tears sprang to her eyes, the sobs strangled in
her throat. "I'll do as I please, as I please," and with the words she
sank down in the chair by her desk and struck her bare knuckles again
and again upon the open lid, crying out through her tears and her sobs,
and from between her tight-shut teeth: "I'll do as I please, do you
understand? As I please, as I please! I will be happy. I will, I will,
I will!"

"Oh, darling, dearest--" cried Page, running forward. But Laura, on her
feet once more, thrust her back.

"Don't touch me," she cried. "I hate you!" She put her fists to her
temples and, her eyes closed, rocked herself to and fro. "Don't you
touch me. Go away from me; go away from me. I hate you; I hate you all.
I hate this house, I hate this life. You are all killing me. Oh, my
God, if I could only die!"

She flung herself full length upon the couch, face downward. Her sobs
shook her from head to foot.

Page knelt at her side, an arm about her shoulder, but to all her
sister's consolations Laura, her voice muffled in her folded arms, only
cried:

"Let me alone, let me alone. Don't touch me."

For a time Page tried to make herself heard; then, after a moment's
reflection, she