uestion she hesitated.

"I don't know," said she, at last.

"It is something that has given you pain?" Max went on, noting the
traces of tears on her face and the misery in her eyes.

"Yes, oh, yes."

The answer was given in a very low voice, with such a heart-felt sob
that Max was touched to the quick. He came quite close to her, and,
bending down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft fair hair on
her forehead, he whispered:

"I'm so sorry. Poor Carrie! I won't worry you, then; I won't ask any
more questions, if only--if only you'll let me tell you how awfully
sorry I am."

He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, as he bent down to look
into her face.

And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that very moment bounced out
of one of the rooms which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of
this pretty little picture before it broke up.

Of course, Max withdrew his hand and lifted up his head so swiftly that
he flattered himself he had been too quick for his father, who walked
along the corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had seen nothing.

But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already greatly irritated by his
son's repeated failures to settle down, found in this little incident a
pretext for a fresh outburst of wrath.

Unluckily for poor Carrie, Mrs. Wedmore was in a state of irritation, in
which she was even readier than usual to agree with her husband. The
arrival of Dudley, with a terrible charge hanging over his head, in such
circumstances as to stir up Doreen's feelings for him to the utmost, was
bad enough. But for him to descend upon them in the company of a young
woman of whom she had never heard, and in whose alleged relationship to
Dudley she entirely disbelieved, had reduced the poor lady to a state
which Queenie succinctly described as "one of mamma's worst."

As soon as Mr. Wedmore entered the drawing-room, where his wife and
daughters were discussing some invitations to dinner which were to have
been sent out, but about which there was now a doubt, he abruptly
ordered the two girls to leave the room. They obeyed very quietly, but
Doreen threw at her mother one imploring glance, and gently pulling her
father's hair, told him that he was not to be a hard, heartless man.

When the door was shut, however, Mr. Wedmore addressed his wife in no
very gentle tones.

"Ellen," said he, curtly, "you must get rid of that baggage they call
the nurse. She's no more a nurse than you ar