ng their motor; a sympathizing group
escorted Grace Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should
take, though she lived but a street or two away; and Miss Bart and Gerty
found themselves almost alone in the purple drawing-room, which more than
ever, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family vault, in which
the last corpse had just been decently deposited.

In Gerty Farish's sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the two
friends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of laughter: it
struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt's legacy should so
nearly represent the amount of her debt to Trenor. The need of
discharging that debt had reasserted itself with increased urgency since
her return to America, and she spoke her first thought in saying to the
anxiously hovering Gerty: "I wonder when the legacies will be paid."

But Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into a
larger indignation. "Oh, Lily, it's unjust; it's cruel--Grace Stepney
must FEEL she has no right to all that money!"

"Any one who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her money,"
Miss Bart rejoined philosophically.

"But she was devoted to you--she led every one to think--" Gerty checked
herself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to her with a
direct look. "Gerty, be honest: this will was made only six weeks ago.
She had heard of my break with the Dorsets?"

"Every one heard, of course, that there had been some disagreement--some
misunderstanding----"

"Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?"

"Lily!"

"That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry George
Dorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous. Isn't that what
she told Gwen Stepney?"

"I don't know--I don't listen to such horrors."

"I MUST listen to them--I must know where I stand." She paused, and again
sounded a faint note of derision. "Did you notice the women? They were
afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the
money--afterward they scuttled off as if I had the plague." Gerty
remained silent, and she continued: "I stayed on to see what would
happen. They took their cue from Gwen Stepney and Lulu Melson--I saw them
watching to see what Gwen would do.--Gerty, I must know just what is
being said of me."

"I tell you I don't listen----"

"One hears such things without listening." She rose and laid her resolute
hands on Miss Farish's shoulders. "Gerty,