her.

At four o'clock Mrs. Walters came in with an armful of flowers from
Christopher and the two women talked of indifferent things over their
tea. Then they went for a drive in the park and Penelope returned
blooming like a lovely rose; but not one word did she breathe of her
deeper thoughts. Seraphine waited.

Seven o'clock!

At last the barrier of pride and reserve began to crumble. Penelope
turned to her old friend, trying at first to speak lightly, but her
troubled eyes told the story of tension within. Then came the
confession--in broken words. There were two things on her
conscience--one that she had done, but it wasn't exactly her fault, one
that she did not do, but she meant to do it. She supposed that was a sin
just the same.

Mrs. Walters smiled encouragingly.

"It can't be so serious a sin, can it? Tell me everything, Pen."

With flaming cheeks the young widow told how she had meant to adopt a
child--in France--that would really have been--her own child. She did
not do this because she met Captain Herrick, but--she would have done
it. The other thing was what happened on the Fall River steamboat--with
Julian. On that tragic summer night, she had finally yielded to him
and--_she had wanted to yield!_

To which Seraphine made the obvious reply: "Still, my dear, he was your
husband."

"But I had sworn that never--never--it was so--ignoble! I despised him.
Then I despised myself."

The medium listened thoughtfully.

"You trust me, don't you, Pen? You know I want to do what is best for
you?" She passed her arm affectionately around her distressed friend.

"Oh, yes. You have proved it, dearest. I'll never be able to repay your
love."

Mrs. Wells began to cry softly.

"Please don't. We need all our courage, our intelligence. It doesn't
matter how wrong you have been in the past, if you are right in the
present. The trouble with you, dear child, is that you cannot see the
truth, although it is right under your eyes."

"But I am telling the truth," Penelope protested tearfully. "I am not
keeping anything back."

"You don't mean to keep anything back--but--"

The psychic's deep-set, searching eyes seemed to read into the soul of
the fair sufferer.

"You showed me parts of your diary once--what you wrote in New York
after your husband died--before you went to France. There were four
years--you remember?"

"Yes."

"How would you interpret those four years, Pen? You were not worried
about mon