addressed himself to
his breakfast. He never looked towards his son at that moment, nor did
Corrie ever break the ensuing silence. The change that had fallen upon
Allan Gerard's life was scarcely more absolute and strange than that
which had come upon the Rose household of innocent ostentation and
intimate gayety.

But the greatest outward alteration was in Isabel. Flavia and Mr. Rose
maintained the usual calm routine of events at home and abroad, Corrie
rigidly obeyed his father's command to live so as to provoke no comment.
But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control.
She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and
fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the
days passed, but rather grew worse in condition.

It was in the sixth week after the accident whose echoes threatened to
linger so long, that Isabel entered her cousin's study, one afternoon.

"Flavia, I am going away," she abruptly announced. "Mrs. Alexander has
asked me to go South with Caroline and her, you know. Uncle says I may
do as I like, and I am going. I can't bear it here," her full lip
quivered.

Flavia turned from the window by which she had been standing, catching
and crushing a fold of the drapery in her small fingers as she faced the
other girl.

"You mean that you cannot bear Corrie," she retorted, in swift reproach.
"You treat him--_how_ you treat him! You hardly speak to him, you hardly
look at him. Oh, you are cruel, you will not see how he suffers for one
moment's fault."

Isabel grasped a chair-back, commencing to tremble.

"I can't bear to stay," she repeated hysterically. "Don't talk to me
about Corrie."

"I never will again," Flavia assured, pale with extreme anger. "Yet you
might remember that he loves you; a little kindness from you would help
him so much. Do you know where he spent yesterday? He was out in his
motor boat; out in November with a north gale blowing, alone in that
speed-boat that is half under water all the time. You do not care, you
have no pity."

"I----"

Flavia imposed silence with a gesture, herself quite unconscious of how
overwhelming was this contrast to her usual gentleness.

"He has done wrong--you have nothing to give him but more punishment.
Yes, go away, that is best. But he would have been kinder to you,
Isabel."

Isabel let go of the chair, her gray eyes dilating unnaturally. Her gaze
dwelling on Flavia, she sl