if he discarded you as a fit listener, than
that he discarded his own comment.

"I don't know but I ought to go myself," rambled Mrs. Hastings,
"perhaps Mr. Hastings would think I ought. Suppose, Mr. Frothingham,
that we both go. Dear, dear! Olivia always sees to my shopping and
flowers and everything executive, but I can't let her go into these
frightful places, can I?"

There was a rustling at the far end of the room, and some one
entered. St. George did not turn, but as her soft skirts touched and
lifted along the floor he was tinglingly aware of her presence. Even
before Mrs. Hastings heard her light footfall, even before the clear
voice spoke, St. George knew that he was at last in the presence of
the arbiter of his enterprise, and of how much else he did not know.
He was silent, breathlessly waiting for her to speak.

"May I come in, Aunt Dora?" she said. "I want to know to what place
it is impossible for me to go?"

She came from the long room's boundary shadow. There was about her a
sense of white and gray with a knot of pale colour in her hat and an
orchid on her white coat. Mrs. Hastings, taking no more account of
her presence than she had of St. George's, tilted back her head and
looked at the primroses in the window as closely as at anything, and
absently presented him.

"Olivia," she said, "this is Mr. St. John, who knows about that
frightful mulatto creature. Mr. St. George," she went on, correcting
the name entirely unintentionally, "my niece, Miss Holland. And I'm
sure I wish I knew what the necessary thing to be done _is_. That is
what I always tell you, you know, Olivia. 'Find out the necessary
thing and do it, and let the rest go.'"

"It reminds me very much," said the lawyer, clearing his throat, "of
a case that I had on the April calendar--"

Miss Holland had turned swiftly to St. George:

"You know the mulatto woman?" she asked, and the lawyer passed by
the April calendar and listened.

"I went to the Bitley Reformatory this morning to see her," St.
George replied. "She gave me this name and address. We have been
saying that some one ought to go there to learn what is to be
learned."

Mr. Frothingham in a silence of pursed lips offered the paper. Miss
Holland glanced at it and returned it.

"Will you tell us what your interest is in this woman?" she asked
evenly. "Why you went to see her?"

"Yes, Miss Holland," St. George replied, "you know of course that
the police have done thei