w!" he soothed her. "I'll tell you anything, sweetheart,
only don't let yourself get so excited. Just tell me what it is, Alice,
and I'll do anything in the world for you, of course!"

"Chris," she said, swallowing with a dry throat, and sitting up with an
air of regaining self-control, "you must tell me. You know you can trust
me, you _know_----! That girl----"

"But _what_ girl--what are you talking about, dear? Do--do try to be
just a little clearer, and calmer----"

"Who"--said Alice, with a ghastly look, sweeping the hair back from her
damp forehead--"who is that Norma Sheridan?"

"Why, I told you, dear, that I don't know," her husband protested. "I
told you weeks ago, after your mother made that scene, the night of
Hendrick's speech, that I couldn't make head or tail of it!"

"Chris"--Alice was regarding him fixedly--"you _must_ know!"

"Dearest, couldn't your mother simply wish to befriend a girl whose
parents----"

Alice flung her loosened hair back, and at her gesture and her glance at
the little carafe on her table he poured her a glass of cold water.
Drinking it off, and raising herself in her cushions, she stretched her
hand to touch the chair beside her, and still without a word indicated
that he was to take it. With a face of grave concern Christopher sat
down beside her, holding her hands in both his own.

"Chris," she said, clearly and quickly, if with occasional catches of
breath, "the minute that girl came into the room I knew that--I knew
that _horror_ had come upon us all! I knew that she was one of us--one
of us Melroses, somehow----"

"Alice!" he said, pleadingly.

"But Mama," she said, with a keen look, "didn't tell you that?"

"She told me only what I told you that night, on my honour as a
gentleman! Alice, what makes you say what you do?"

"Ah, Chris," his wife cried, almost frantically, "look at her! _Look_ at
her! Why, her voice is Annie's, the same identical voice--she looks like
my father, like Theodore--she looks like us all! She and Leslie were so
much alike, as they sat there, in spite of the colouring, that I almost
screamed it at them! Surely--surely, you see it--everyone sees it!"

He stared at her, beginning to breathe a little quickly in his turn.

"By George!" she heard him whisper, as if to himself.

"Do you see it, Chris?" Alice whispered, almost fearfully.

"But--but----" He got up and walked restlessly to the window, and came
back to sit down again. "But there'