minutes,'" said Aunt
Katrina, irritably. "Who cares for ten minutes? I wish it were ten
years." Then her mind reverted to Garda. "She has some plan," she said.

"I don't think she plans. And now that this trouble is off your mind, my
dear aunt, will you excuse me if I leave you? I have still only just
arrived, and I was up at dawn. Shall I send Celestine to you?"

"Celestine is busy; she is refolding some lace--Flemish church."

"Your Betty, then."

"My Betty has behaved in the most _traitorous_ way."

"When she was the one to tell you?"

"She should have told me long before."

"Why she, more than any of the rest of us?" asked Winthrop, rising.

"Because _she_ must have made a superhuman effort not to; because _she_
must have fairly kept herself in a strait-jacket to prevent it--in a
strait-jacket night and day; for eight long months has Elizabeth Gwinnet
done that!"

"Don't you think, then, that you ought to have some pity for her?"
suggested Winthrop.

He went out. And then Betty, who was sitting, dazed and dejected, on the
edge of a chair outside the door, hurried in, handkerchief in hand, to
make her peace with dearest Kate, her long limp black skirt (all Betty's
skirts were long) trailing in an eager, humble way behind her.

Winthrop had said that he wished to go to his room. The way to it was
not through the drawing-room; yet he found himself in the latter
apartment.

Margaret sat there near one of the windows sewing, sewing with that
even motion of hand, and absorbed gaze bent on the long seam, which he
had told himself more than once that he detested. The heavy wooden
shutter was slightly open, so that a beam of light entered and shone
across her hair; the rest of the room was in shadow.

Winthrop came towards her; he had closed the door upon entering. She
gave him her hand, and they exchanged a few words of formal
greeting--inquiry and reply about his journey and kindred matters.

"Garda has broken her engagement to me; I presume you know it," he said.

"I knew she intended to do it."

"She tells me that you have tried to dissuade her?"

"Yes; I thought she did not, perhaps, fully know her own mind."

"We must give up the idea that she is a child," he said. "We have been
mistaken, probably, about that all along."

Margaret sewed on without answering.

"You are very loyal to her; you don't let me see that you agree with
me."

"I didn't suppose that you meant any disparagement, when you