tood looking down at the
girl in silence; then a sudden shivering seized her; she strove to
control it, but her knees seemed to give way under it and she dropped
down beside the bed, throwing both arms around Geraldine's neck.

[Illustration: "Oh, the horror of it!--the shame, the agonised
surprise."]

"Oh, don't, _don't_!" she whimpered. "It is too terrible! It ruined
your father and your grandfather! Darling, I couldn't bear to tell you
this before, but now I've got to tell you! It is in your blood.
Seagraves die of it! Do you understand?"

"W-what?" stammered the girl.

"That all their lives they did what--what you have done to-day--that you
have inherited their terrible inclinations. Even as a little child you
frightened me. Have you forgotten what you and I talked over and cried
over after your first party?"

The girl said slowly: "I don't know how--it--happened, Kathleen. Duane
came in.... I tasted what he had in his glass.... I don't know why I did
it. I wish I were dead!"

"There is only one thing to do--never to touch anything--anything----"

"Y-yes, I know that I must not. But how was I to know before? Will you
tell me?"

"You understand _now_, thank God!"

"N-not exactly.... Other girls seem to do as they please without
danger.... It is amazing that such a horrible thing should happen to
me----"

"It is a shameful thing that it should happen to any woman. And the
horror of it is that almost every hostess in town lets girls of your age
run the risk. Darling, don't you know that the only chance a woman has
with the world is in her self-control? When that goes, her chances go,
every one of them! Dear--we have latent in us much the same vices that
men have. We have within us the same possibilities of temptations, the
same capacity for excesses, the same capabilities for resistance.
Because you are a girl, you are not immune from unworthy desires."

"I know it. The--the dreadful thing about it is that I do desire such
things. Perhaps I had better not even nibble sugar scented with
cologne----"

"Do you do _that_?" faltered Kathleen.

"I did not know there was any danger in it," sobbed the girl. "You have
scared me terribly, Kathleen."

"Is that true about the cologne?"

"Y-yes."

"You don't do it now, do you?"

"Yes."

"You don't do it every day, do you?"

"Yes, several times."

"How long"--Kathleen's lips almost refused to move--"how long have you
done this?"

"For a long time. I've