e touching--but
they were also rather deliciously amusing--as they concentrated all
their resources of solemnity and of worldly experience on the tragic
case of the woman whom life had defeated. Hilda's memory rushed
strangely to Victor Hugo. She was experiencing the same utter
desolation--but somehow less noble--as had gripped her when she first
realized the eternal picture, in _Oceana Nox_, of the pale-fronted
widows who, tired of waiting for those whose barque had never returned
out of the tempest, talked quietly among themselves of the
lost--stirring the cinders in the fireplace and in their hearts.... Yet
Sarah Gailey was not even a widow. She was an ageing dancing-mistress.
She had once taught the grace of rhythmic movement to young limbs; and
now she was rheumatic.

"Nobody but Mr. Cannon can do anything," Janet murmured.

"I'm sure he hasn't the slightest idea--not the slightest!" said Hilda
half defensively. But she was saying to herself: "This man made me write
a lie, and now I hear that his sister is starving--in the same town!"
And she thought of his glossy opulence. "I'm quite sure of _that_!" she
repeated to Janet.

"Oh! So am I!" Janet eagerly concurred. "That's why I came.... Somebody
had to give him a hint.... I never dreamt of finding you, dear!"

"It is strange, isn't it?" said Hilda, the wondrous romance of things
seizing her. Seen afresh, through the eyes of this charming, sympathetic
acquaintance, was not Mr. Cannon's originality in engaging her
positively astounding?

"I suppose _you_ couldn't give him a hint?"

"Yes, I'll tell him," said Hilda. "Of course!" In spite of herself she
was assuming a certain proprietorship in Mr. Cannon.

"I'm so glad!" Janet replied. "It is good of you!"

"It seems to me it's you that's good, Janet," Hilda said grimly. She
thought: "Should _I_, out of simple kindliness and charity, have
deliberately come to tell a man I didn't know... that his sister was
starving? Never!"

"He's bound to see after it!" said Janet, content.

"Why, of course!" said Hilda, clinching the affair, in an intimate,
confidential murmur.

"You'll tell him to-night?"

Hilda nodded.

They exchanged a grave glance of mutual appreciation and understanding.
Each was sure of the other's high esteem. Each was glad that chance had
brought about the meeting between them. Then they lifted away their
apprehensive solicitude for Sarah Gailey, and Janet, having sighed
relief, began to tal