sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking
wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon
herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so
many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter
between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my
word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however,
demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in
such terms.

"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew
me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I
should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even
supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would
probably have made up for it."

"Do you stay much in hotels?"

There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question
only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good
deal to recall it.

"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets
up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable. You see, one
does make a friend or two sometimes--before one is found out."

"But surely your people--"

This time I did check myself.

"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me."

"But Major Lascelles--surely _his_ people--"

"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to
tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of
madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst
thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything,
or feel anything, against his family...."

And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than
I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in
particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of
interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so
young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her
loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob
Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little
different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled
already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched
now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a
world of high lights and great backgrounds, and