out. That's
the real Doctor Southall."

The rockers vibrated in silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Gifford said: "I
never knew before that he had anything to do with that duel. Was he one
of Valiant's seconds?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Mason; "and the major was the other. I was a little
girl when it happened. I can barely remember it, but it made a big
sensation."

"And over a love-affair!" exclaimed Mrs. Gifford in the tone of one to
whom romance was daily bread.

"I suppose it was."

"Why, my _dear_! Of _course_ it was. That's always been the story. What
on earth have men to fight duels about except us women? They only
_pretend_ it's cards or horses. Trust me, there's always a pair of silk
stockings at the bottom of it! Girls are so thoughtless--though you and
I were just as bad, I suppose, if we only remembered!--and they don't
realize that it's sometimes a serious thing to trifle with a man. That
is, of course, if he's of a certain type. _I_ think our Virginian girls
flirt outrageously. They quit only at the church door (though I _will_
say they generally stop then) and they take a man's ring without any
idea whatever of the sacredness of an engagement. You remember Ilsa
Eustis who married the man from Petersburg? She was engaged to two men
at once, and used to wear whichever ring belonged to the one who was
coming to see her. One day they came together. She was in the yard when
they stopped at the horse-block. Well, she tied her handkerchief round
her hand and said she'd burned herself pulling candy. (No, neither one
of them was the man from Petersburg.) When she was married, one of them
wrote her and asked for his ring. It had seven diamonds set in the shape
of a cross. I'm telling you this in confidence, just as it was told to
me. She didn't write a reply--she only sent him a telegram: 'Simply to
thy cross I cling.' She wears the stones yet in a bracelet."

For a time the conversation languished. Then Mrs. Gifford asked
suddenly: "_Who_ do you suppose she could have been?--the girl behind
that old Valiant affair."

Mrs. Mason shook her head. "No one knows for certain--unless, of course,
the major or the doctor, and I wouldn't question either of them for
worlds. You see, people had stopped gossiping about it before I was out
of school."

"But surely your husband--"

"The only quarrel we had while we were engaged was over that. I tried to
make him tell me. I imagined from something he said then that the young
m