in topic of conversation; she never approached
two people talking in the street that they didn't break off in guilty
confusion, and comments upon her mode of dressing and daily
occupations were continually repeated to her in the form of censure.
Her own family were especially out of touch, for their assumption that
she mourned her husband as Polly would have done made her feel like an
impostor. They did not give her much of their company, for their newly
found fortune made them even more self-centered than their
misfortunes. Dicky was the exception; perhaps because he had started
in life hard as nails, and so couldn't grow any harder. At all events,
Deena thought she discerned a reluctant affection in his greeting that
was infinitely flattering.

Stephen wrote whenever he could catch the Chilian mail boats on their
way through the Straits. His letters were those of a man under the
strong hand of restraint; admirable letters, that filled her with
respect for him and shame at her own craving for "one word more."

On the twenty-fifth of May she had a cable that changed the face of
events. It was from Montevideo.

Have found Simeon. Desperately ill. On our way home.
S. FRENCH.

The news spread over the town like wildfire. The local paper issued an
extra; a thing it had not done since the assassination of Mr.
McKinley. As soon as Harmouth knew Mrs. Ponsonby's exact status it
became distinctly friendly. People are helpful by instinct, and offers
of neighborly assistance poured in from all sides.

Deena left nothing undone that could, by anticipation, add to Simeon's
comfort. His room was ready, a nurse engaged, and all the
paraphernalia belonging to the care of the sick collected long before
the time due for his arrival. She counted upon seeing him four weeks
from the date of the cable. The regular trip of the mail boats between
Rio and New York is twenty days; from Montevideo two days more; to
that must be added another day to reach Boston, and she was warned
that a yacht would go more slowly than a large steamer; she therefore
concluded the third week in June would bring them.

The lot of women is to wait, and they do it under a pressure of
nervous strain that makes it slow torture. No turn of fortune could
have surprised Deena at this crisis, for her imagination had pictured
every possibility.

When a summer storm blackened the sky she saw the yacht tempest-to