she refrain from doing so but
she even preferred to be known as "Gretna"--the style of one of the
family estates.

This pseudonym she had adopted shortly after her divorce, when she had
attempted to take up a stage career. But although the experience had
proved disastrous, she had retained the nom de guerre, and during the
past four years had several times appeared at war charity garden-parties
as a classical dancer--to the great delight of the guests and greater
disgust of her family. Her maternal uncle, head of her house, said to
be the most blase member of the British peerage and known as "the noble
tortoise," was generally considered to have pronounced the final verdict
upon his golden-haired niece when he declared "she is almost amusing."

Mollie received her visitor with extravagant expressions of welcome.

"My dear Miss Halley," she cried, "how perfectly sweet of you to come to
see me! of course, I can guess what you have called about. Look! I
have every paper published this morning in London! Every one! Oh! poor,
darling little Rita! What can have become of her!"

Tears glistened upon her carefully made-up lashes, and so deep did her
grief seem to be that one would never have suspected that she had spent
the greater part of the night playing bridge at a "mixed" club in Dover
Street, and from thence had proceeded to a military "breakfast-dance."

"It is indeed a ghastly tragedy," said Margaret. "It seems incredible
that she cannot be traced."

"Absolutely incredible!" declared Mollie, opening a large box of
cigarettes. "Will you have one, dear?"

"No, thanks. By the way, they are not from Buenos Ayres, I suppose?"

Mollie, cigarette in hand, stared, round-eyed, and:

"Oh, my dear Miss Halley!" she cried, "what an idea! Such a funny thing
to suggest."

Margaret smiled coolly.

"Poor Sir Lucien used to smoke cigarettes of that kind," she explained,
"and I thought perhaps you smoked them, too."

Mollie shook her head and lighted the cigarette.

"He gave me one once, and it made me feel quite sick," she declared.

Margaret glanced at the speaker, and knew immediately that Mollie had
determined to deny all knowledge of the drug coterie. Because there is
no problem of psychology harder than that offered by a perverted mind,
Margaret was misled in ascribing this secrecy to a desire to avoid
becoming involved in a scandal. Therefore:

"Do you quite realize, Miss Gretna," she said quietly, "that every ho