r own interests, that our Heavenly Father
would think fit to take her to Himself. Now, I want to talk to you about
something serious."

Mrs. Bayford made herself comfortable in a deep, low chair, with her
feet on a footstool.

"I suppose you've never guessed," she asked, at last, "why Marion has
been with me all this time?"

"I did guess," Miss Lucilla admitted, with a faint blush, "but I don't
know that I guessed right."

"I expect you did. No one could see as much of her as you've done
without knowing she had a love-affair."

"That's what I thought."

"It's been a great trial," Mrs. Bayford sighed, "and it isn't over yet.
In fact, I don't know but what it's only just beginning."

"Wasn't he--desirable?"

"Oh yes; very much so, and is so still. It wasn't that. He was all that
any one could wish--old family, position, title, good looks,
everything."

"But if Marion liked him, and he liked her--?"

"I could explain it to you better if you knew more about men."

"I do know a--a little," Miss Lucilla ventured to assert, shyly.

"There is a case in which a little is not enough. You've got to
understand a man's capacity for loving one woman and being fascinated by
another. I think they call it double consciousness."

"I don't think it's very honorable," Miss Lucilla declared, in
disapproval.

"A man doesn't stop to think of honor, my dear, when he's in a grand
passion. Bienville has honor written in his very countenance, but this
was an occasion when he couldn't get it into play. It was perfectly
tragic. He had already spoken to Robert Grimston in the manliest
way--told all about himself--found out how much Marion would have as
her _dot_--and got permission to pay her his addresses--when all came
to nothing because of another woman."

With this as an introduction it was natural that Mrs. Bayford should go
on to repeat the oft-told tale in its entirety, lending it a light that
no one had given to it yet. With the information she already possessed
from Diane's letter it was impossible for Lucilla not to recognize all
the characters as readily as Derek Pruyn had done, while she had the
advantage over him of knowing Marion Grimston's place in the action. It
was a dreadful story, and if Miss Lucilla was not more profoundly
shocked it was because Mrs. Bayford, by overshooting the mark, rendered
it incredible. None the less she agreed with Mrs. Bayford on the main
point she had come to urge, that Diane, on one s