the throat and sleeves.

In response to her sister's speech Sally gathered about her the dressing
gown, which she had not yet fastened, and immediately started to leave
the room.

"I shall be very glad indeed to talk to Aunt Patricia, but not to you,
Alice, nor do I ever intend to forgive you. I suppose you followed old
Jean and me to the chateau and have drawn your own inference from what
you observed. Do you know, Alice, I have often wondered why the
puritanical conscience is always so suspicious of other people?" And in
this last speech of Sally's there was more of truth that she could fully
appreciate.

But if in this final analysis she were speaking the truth, the first
part of her remark had been a complete falsehood. At the present time
there was nothing she desired so little as being forced into making her
confession to Miss Patricia Lord, a severe spinster with no
consideration for human folly. Would any one else on earth be more
difficult or more unrelenting?

In the past hour or more, following her conversation at the chateau,
Sally had been facing one of the hardest experiences of life.

Her weeks of self-sacrifice and devotion had been not only unnecessary,
they had been absurd. If only she could have enjoyed the inward
satisfaction of considering herself a heroine or a martyr! But she had
risked her own reputation and the young French officer's life to what
end?

As the two girls entered Miss Patricia's room, Sally, accompanied by her
sister, whose existence on earth she refused to recognize, considered
that Miss Patricia appeared as implacable as a stone image. Yet one
could scarcely compare her to the Sphinx. That ancient stone figure with
the head of a woman and the body of a lioness looks as if she had
devoted the many centuries since her creation to solving the riddles of
human life.

Miss Patricia would consider anything but plain speaking a sheer waste
of energy and truth. There were no riddles in Miss Patricia's mental
category.

Nevertheless, Miss Patricia's voice did not sound unkind when she
suggested that Sally occupy the solitary chair in her bedroom, although
undoubtedly this would leave the elderly woman standing as well as
Alice. But then Sally did not realize how appealing her appearance was
at this moment even to so harsh a critic of human nature.

Sally indolent, Sally dreaming her own small and rather selfish dreams,
or a Sally self-assured and self-content were not unfamili