r attacks on Jethro, and scorned them as the
cowardly devices of enemies. They had been, indeed, but guarded and
covert allusions--grimaces from a safe distance. Cynthia's first
sensation as she read was anger--anger so intense as to send all the
blood in her body rushing to her head. But what was this? "Right had
found a champion at last" in--in Isaac D. Worthington! That was the
first blow, and none but Cynthia knew the weight of it. It sank but
slowly into her consciousness, and slowly the blood left her face,
slowly but surely: left it at length as white as the lace curtain of
the window which she clutched in her distress. Words which somebody had
spoken were ringing in her ears. Whatever happens! "Whatever happens I
will never desert you, never deny you, as long as I live." This, then,
was what he had meant by newspapers, and why he had come to her!

The sisters, watching her, cried out in dismay. There was no need to
tell them that they were looking on at a tragedy, and all the love and
sympathy in their hearts went out to her.

"Cynthia! Cynthia! What is it?" cried Susan, who, thinking she would
faint, seized her in her arms. "What have I done?"

Cynthia did not faint, being made of sterner substance. Gently, but
with that inexorable instinct of her kind which compels them to look for
reliance within themselves even in the direst of extremities, Cynthia
released herself from Susan's embrace and put a hand to her forehead.

"Will you leave me here a little while--alone?" she said.

It was Jane now who drew Susan out and shut the door of the parlor after
them. In utter misery they waited on the stairs while Cynthia fought out
her battle for herself.

When they were gone she sank down into the big chair under the reading
lamp--the very chair in which he had sat only two nights before. She saw
now with a terrible clearness the thing which for so long had been but a
vague premonition of disaster, and for a while she forgot the clippings.
And when after a space the touch of them in her hand brought them back
to her remembrance, she lacked the courage to read them through. But not
for long. Suddenly her fear of them gave place to a consuming hatred of
the man who had inspired these articles: of Isaac D. Worthington, for
she knew that he must have inspired them. And then she began again to
read them.

Truth, though it come perverted from the mouth of an enemy, has
in itself a note to which the soul responds, let t