ote again and her hands shook.

"Flora is very ill. We are taking her up to New York. After that we
shall go to the North Shore. There isn't time for me to come and
say, 'Good-bye.' Perhaps it is better not to come. It has been a
wonderful summer, and it is you who have made it wonderful for me.
The memory will linger with me always--like a sweet dream or a rare
old tale. I am sending you a little token--for remembrance. Think
of me sometimes, Becky."

That was all, except a scrawled "G. D." at the end. No word of coming
back. No word of writing to her again. No word of any future in which
she would have a part.

She opened the box. Within on a slender chain was a pendant--a square
sapphire set in platinum, and surrounded by diamonds. George had
ordered it in anticipation of this crisis. He had, hitherto, found such
things rather effective in the cure of broken hearts.

Now, had George but known it, Becky had jewels in leather cases in the
vaults of her bank which put his sapphire trinket to shame. There were
the diamonds in which a Meredith great-grandmother had been presented at
the Court of St. James, and there were the pearls of which her own
string was a small part. There were emeralds and rubies, old corals and
jade--not for nothing had the Admiral sailed the seas, bringing back
from China and India lovely things for the woman he loved. And now the
jewels were Becky's, and she had not cared for them in the least. If
George had loved her she would have cherished his sapphire more than all
the rest.

But he did not love her. She knew it in that moment. All of her doubts
were confirmed.

The thing that had happened to her seemed incredible.

She put the sapphire back in its box, wrapped it, tied the string
carefully and called Mandy.

"Tell Calvin to take this to Mr. Dalton."

Mandy knew at once that something was wrong. But this was not a moment
for words. The Bannisters did not talk about things that troubled them.
They held their heads high. And Becky's was high at this moment, and her
eyes were blazing.

As she sat there, tense, Becky wondered what Dalton could have thought
of her. If she had not had a jewel in the world, she would not have kept
his sapphire. Didn't he know that?

But how could he know? To him it had been "a sweet dream--a rare old
tale," and she had thought him a Romeo ready to die for her sake, an
Aucassin--willing to brave Hell rather than give