to it for a minute. I'll tell you what, Electra!" She had
discovered. "If you're so anxious to get rid of the place, I'll tell you
what I'll do. I'll buy it."

"Buy it, grandmother? what belongs to you already?"

"Don't say that again. It gives me a ringing in my ears. That's what
I'll do. You're going to marry Peter Grant and go abroad. I'll take the
place off your hands. I've always wanted it. I've made a shocking sum
out of my book, shocking. I can well afford it. There's an offer for
you!"

Electra shook her head.

"I couldn't," she said gently. "How could I sell you what is yours
already? The letter--"

"The letter!" repeated the old lady, as if it were an imprecation. She
looked at Billy. He returned the glance with a despairing immobility.
She reflected that the case must be worse even than she had thought,
since Billy had not smiled. Electra must be madder than she had
imagined, and her own culpability was the greater for weaving such a
coil. "Shall I tell her, Billy?" she asked faintly.

He nodded.

"I should," he said commiseratingly, and got up to leave the room. It
seemed to Billy this summer that he was constantly trying to escape
situations with a delicacy which was more than half cowardice, only to
be dragged back into the arena. The mandate he had expected promptly
came.

"Don't go, Billy," cried the old lady. "Sit down." Madam Fulton
continued, in a hesitating humility Electra had never seen in her,
"Electra, I don't believe you'll quite understand when I tell you
there's something queer about the letter. You see there never was any
letter. I--made it up."

The boot was on the other foot. All the values of the scene had shifted.
Now it was Electra who doubted the general sanity. Electra was smiling
at her.

"No, grandmother," she was saying, with a pretty air of chiding, "you
mustn't talk that way. You think that convinces me. It's very dear of
you, very dear and generous. But I know why you do it."

"Bless my sinful soul!" ejaculated the old lady. "Oh--you tell her,
Billy."

Billy shook his head. He was not going to be dragged as far as that. He
was sorry for her, but she had had her whistle and she must pay for it.
The old lady was beginning again in a weak voice,--

"You see, Electra, that book isn't what you think. It isn't what anybody
thinks. I--I made it up."

Electra was about to speak, but her grandmother forestalled her.

"Don't you go and offer me wine. You get it into y