ery.

"For heaven's sake!" she ejaculated, "Electra, why don't you speak?"

"I lived with Tom Fulton as his wife," said Rose, in the same moving
voice. She might have been engaged in the rehearsal of a difficult part.
No one looking at her could have said whether she duly weighed what she
was announcing. "I called myself his wife because I thought I had a
right to. Other people would have called me a disgraced woman."

Billy Stark now, without waiting to find the step, walked off the edge
of the veranda and was presently to be seen, if any one had had eyes for
him, lighting a cigar in the peaceful garden. Madam Fulton had spoken on
the heels of these last words. She brightened into the most cordial
animation.

"This is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life," she
commented, with relish. "Sit down, my dear, and tell us all about it."

"There is nothing more to tell," said Rose. Her eyes traveled to
Electra's face, and stayed there, though the unfriendly triumph of it
shook her resolution. "I had to say this because I must say, too, that I
do not want money and I will not take it. I do not want to be known as
Tom Fulton's wife. I was not his wife."

"You wanted it a week ago," said Electra involuntarily. She had made up
her mind not to speak, not to be severe, not to be anything that would
destroy the picture Markham MacLeod must have of her in his own mind;
but the words escaped her.

"That was before--" Rose stopped. She had almost said it was before her
father came, but it was borne floodingly in upon her that this was not
alone the reason. It was before she had felt this great allegiance to
Osmond Grant.

"Your father confirms you," said Electra, yielding to her overpowering
curiosity. "He says you were my brother's wife."

"My father"--Rose held her head higher--"I have nothing to do with
that," she concluded. "It is the truth that I was never married."

Electra turned away and went into the house. They heard her step in the
neighboring room. She had paused there by the piano, considering, in her
desire to be mistress of herself, whether she should not go on with her
music as if nothing had happened. But the thought of Rose and her
mastery of the keys forbade that, as display, and she turned away and
went upstairs, with great dignity, though there was no one by to
consider the fashion of it. There she sat down by the window, to watch
for Markham MacLeod. Madam Fulton had been regarding Rose w