le for much
more than she herself ever realizes. But one thing she never succeeded
in doing: she never shook Mr. Ocumpaugh's love for his wife or hers for
him. Whether it was the result of that early romantic episode of which I
have spoken, or whether their natures are peculiarly congenial, the bond
between them has been one of exceptional strength and purity."

"It will be their comfort now," I remarked.

Mrs. Carew smiled, but in a dubious way that added to my perplexity and
made me question more seriously than ever just what her motive had been
in subjecting me to these very intimate reminiscences of one I was about
to approach on an errand of whose purport she could have only a general
idea.

Had she read my inmost soul? Did she wish to save her friend, or save
herself, or even to save me from the result of a blind use of such tools
as were the only ones afforded me? Impossible to determine. She was at
this present moment, as she had always been, in fact, an unsolvable
problem to me, and it was not at this hurried time and with such serious
work before me that I could venture to make any attempt to understand
her.

"You will let me know the outcome of your talk with Mrs. Ocumpaugh?" she
cried, as I moved to the front of the porch.

It was for me to look dubious now. I could make no such promise as that.

"I will let you know the instant there is any good news," I assured her.

And with that I moved off, but not before hearing the peremptory command
with which she entered the house:

"Now, Dinah, quick!"

Evidently, her preparations for departure were to be pushed.

XVII

IN THE GREEN BOUDOIR

So far in this narrative I have kept from the reader nothing but an old
experience of which I was now to make use. This experience involved Mrs.
Ocumpaugh, and was the cause of the confidence which I had felt from the
first in my ability to carry this search through to a successful
termination. I believed that in some secret but as yet undiscovered way,
it offered a key to this tragedy. And I still believed this, little as I
had hitherto accomplished and blind as the way continued to look before
me.

Nevertheless, it was with anything but a cheerful heart that I advanced
that morning through the shrubbery toward the Ocumpaugh mansion.

I dreaded the interview I had determined to seek. I was young, far too
young, to grapple with the difficulties it involved; yet I saw no way of
avoiding it, or of saving