ficient. The license was procured. The wedding was
fixed. And I--well, God was good, the world was good, and life was a
joy beyond all dreams. You see I, too, was young then. My only
relative was a younger sister. She was a beautiful girl with red-gold
hair. And she was in business in California. I sent for her to come to
the wedding."

Joan gave a tense sigh. She knew what was to follow. The red-gold hair
told its own story. Mercy Lascelles raised a pair of stony eyes, and
her thin lips were smiling.

"I can see you understand," she said, without emotion. "Yes, she came,
and she stole your father from me. Oh, yes! she was handsome enough to
steal any man. She was even more beautiful than you are. It was just
before we were to be married. Less than a week. A good time to steal
him from me--after three years of waiting." She laughed bitterly. "She
stole him, and I--I cursed her. Oh, I didn't cry out! I simply cursed
her, I cursed her offspring, and burned every garment I had made or
bought for the wedding in my parlor stove. I sat by and watched the
fire as it hungrily devoured each record of my foolish day-dreams. And
as each one vanished in cinder and smoke I cursed her from the very
bottom of my heart."

The woman laughed again, and Joan could not repress a shudder at the
sound.

"Twelve months she had of him. And during those twelve months both he
and she nearly drove me mad in their efforts to make me marry your
father's great friend and fellow gambler. His name doesn't matter. He
was a brown-haired creature, who was, if possible, a greater gambler
than your father. But unlike your father his luck was phenomenal. He
grew rich whilst Charles Stanmore, with every passing week, grew
poorer. And for twelve long months he persecuted me with his
attentions. He never left me alone. I sometimes think he was crazy in
his desire to marry me. He knew the whole of my wretched story, yet it
made no difference. He swore to me in his mildly deliberate way that I
should marry him. Perhaps I ought to have read the real character of
the man underlying his gentle manner, but, poor fool that I was, I
didn't. It was left to later events to open my eyes, events which were
to teach me that under the guise of friendship he hated Charles
Stanmore, because--because, in spite of everything, I still loved him.

"At the end of those twelve months my cup of bitterness was filled to
overflowing. You were born. You, with your deep-blue eyes