uplifted peace. So angelic and majestic did she seem that Mathilde,
looking up at her, would hardly have been surprised if she had floated
out into space from her vantage-ground on the staircase.

Then Farron lit a last cigar, gave a quick, steady glance at his wife,
and went out. The front door ended the incident as sharply as a shot
would have done.

It was then that Mathilde expected to see her mother break down. Under
all her sympathy there was a faint human curiosity as to how people
contrived to live through such crises. If Pete were on the brink of
death, she thought that she would go mad: but, then, she and Pete were
not a middle-aged married couple; they were young, and new to love.

They all went into the drawing-room, Adelaide the calmest of the three.

"I wonder," she said, "if you two would mind dining a little earlier than
usual. I might sleep if I could get to bed early, and I must be at the
hospital before eight."

Mr. Lanley agreed a little more quickly than it was his habit to speak.

"O Mama, I think you're so marvelous!" said Mathilde, and touched at her
own words, she burst into tears. Her mother put her arm about her, and
Mr. Lanley patted her shoulder--his sovereign care.

"There, there, my dear," he murmured, "you must not cry. You know Vincent
has a very good chance, a very good chance."

The assumption that he hadn't was just the one Mathilde did not want to
appear to make. Her mother saw this and said gently:

"She's overstrained, that's all."

The girl wiped her eyes.

"I'm ashamed, when you are so calm and wonderful."

"I'm not wonderful," said her mother. "I have no wish to cry. I'm beyond
it. Other people's trouble often makes us behave more emotionally than
our own. If it were your Pete, I should be in tears." She smiled, and
looked across the girl's head at Mr. Lanley. "She would like to see him,
Papa. Telephone Pete Wayne, will you, and ask him to come and see her
this evening? You'll be here, won't you?"

Mr. Lanley nodded without cordiality; he did not approve of encouraging
the affair unnecessarily.

"How kind you are, Mama!" exclaimed Mathilde, almost inaudibly. It was
just what she wanted, just what she had been wanting all day, to see her
own man, to assure herself, since death was seen to be hot on the trail
of all mortals, that he and she were not wasting their brief time in
separation.

"We might take a turn in the motor," said Mr. Lanley, thinking that Mrs.
W