secret to be kept from him at whatever cost to her racked nerves.

"Oh, you know, he doesn't always wait for orders!" On the whole it
sounded better than she'd feared.

"You mean he's called me one already?" He accepted the fact with his
gayest laugh. "Well, that saves a lot of trouble; now we can pass to the
order of the day----" he broke off and glanced at the clock--"which is,
you know, dear, that she's starting in about an hour; she and Adelaide
must already be snatching a hasty sandwich. You'll come down to bid them
good-bye?"

"Yes--of course."

There had, in fact, grown upon her while he spoke the urgency of seeing
Sophy Viner again before she left. The thought was deeply distasteful:
Anna shrank from encountering the girl till she had cleared a way
through her own perplexities. But it was obvious that since they had
separated, barely an hour earlier, the situation had taken a new shape.
Sophy Viner had apparently reconsidered her decision to break amicably
but definitely with Owen, and stood again in their path, a menace and a
mystery; and confused impulses of resistance stirred in Anna's mind. She
felt Owen's touch on her arm. "Are you coming?"

"Yes...yes...presently."

"What's the matter? You look so strange."

"What do you mean by strange?"

"I don't know: startled--surprised." She read what her look must be by
its sudden reflection in his face.

"Do I? No wonder! You've given us all an exciting morning."

He held to his point. "You're more excited now that there's no cause for
it. What on earth has happened since I saw you?"

He looked about the room, as if seeking the clue to her agitation, and
in her dread of what he might guess she answered: "What has happened is
simply that I'm rather tired. Will you ask Sophy to come up and see me
here?"

While she waited she tried to think what she should say when the girl
appeared; but she had never been more conscious of her inability to deal
with the oblique and the tortuous. She had lacked the hard teachings of
experience, and an instinctive disdain for whatever was less clear and
open than her own conscience had kept her from learning anything of the
intricacies and contradictions of other hearts. She said to herself:
"I must find out----" yet everything in her recoiled from the means by
which she felt it must be done...

Sophy Viner appeared almost immediately, dressed for departure, her
little bag on her arm. She was still pale to the point of