ain a mysterious refreshment from Orde's
mere proximity; so gradually he, with that streak of almost feminine
intuition which is the especial gift to lovers, came to the point of
sitting quite silent with her, clasping her hand out of sight of the
chance passer-by. When the time came to return, they arose and walked
back to Ninth Street, still in silence. At the door they said good-bye.
He kissed her quite soberly.

"I wish I could help, sweetheart," said he.

She shook her head at him.

"You do help," she replied.

From Gerald at the club, Orde sought more intimate news of what was
going on. For several days, however, the young man absented himself from
his usual haunts. It was only at the end of the week that Orde succeeded
in finding him.

"No," Gerald answered his greeting, "I haven't been around much. I've
been sticking pretty close home."

Little by little, Orde's eager questions drew out the truth of the
situation. Mrs. Bishop had shut herself up in a blind and incredible
obstinacy, whence she sallied with floods of complaints, tears,
accusations, despairs, reproaches, vows, hysterics--all the battery
of the woman misunderstood, but in which she refused to listen to a
consecutive conversation. If Carroll undertook to say anything,
the third word would start her mother off into one of her long and
hysterical tirades. It was very wearing, and there seemed to be nothing
gained from day to day. Her child had disobeyed her. And as a climax,
she had assumed the impregnable position of a complete prostration,
wherein she demanded the minute care of an invalid in the crisis of a
disorder. She could bear no faintest ray of illumination, no lightest
footfall. In a hushed twilight she lay, her eyes swathed, moaning feebly
that her early dissolution at the hands of ingratitude was imminent.
Thus she established a deadlock which was likely to continue
indefinitely. The mere mention of the subject nearest Carroll's heart
brought the feeble complaint:

"Do you want to kill me?"

The only scrap of victory to be snatched from this stricken field
was the fact that Carroll insisted on going to meet her lover every
afternoon. The invalid demanded every moment of her time, either for
personal attendance or in fulfilment of numerous and exacting church
duties. An attempt, however, to encroach thus on the afternoon hours met
a stone wall of resolution on Carroll's part.

This was the situation Orde gathered from his talk wi