I. She has nothing of her own, poor girl."

"Has her father repudiated her? That ought to tell something."

Peter was silent for a moment. Then he said in an engaging honesty,
bound as it was to hurt his own cause,--

"I don't know. I don't understand their relation altogether. Rose gives
no opinions, but I fancy she is not in sympathy with him."

"Yes, I fancied so."

"But we mustn't fancy so. We mustn't get up an atmosphere and look
through it till we see distorted facts."

"Those are what I want, Peter, facts. If Miss MacLeod--"

"Do you mean you won't even give her your brother's name?"

"Even, Peter! What could be more decisive?"

"Do you expect me to introduce her as Miss MacLeod? Do you expect me to
call her so?"

"I fancied you called her Rose."

"I did. I do. I began it in those unspeakable days when Tom went out of
his head with fright and fever and we held him down in bed. Electra!"

She was listening.

"Was that grandmother calling?" she asked, though grandmother never yet
had summoned her for companionship or service. But Electra felt her high
decorum failing her. She was tired with the impact of emotion, and it
was a part of her creed never to confess to weakness. She had snatched
at the slight subterfuge as if it were a sustaining draught. "I am
afraid I must go."

"Electra!" He placed himself before her with outstretched hands. Very
simple emotions were talking in him. They told him that this was the
second day of his return, that he was her lover, and he had not kissed
her. And they told him also, to his sheer fright and bewilderment, that
he did not want to kiss her. All he could ineffectually do was to
reiterate, "We can't go on like this. Nothing in the world is worth it."
Yet while he said it, he knew there was one thing at least infinitely
worth while: to right the wrongs of a beautiful and misjudged lady. Only
it was necessary, apparently, for the present, to keep the lady out of
the question.

Electra was listening.

"It is grandmother," she said recklessly. "I must go."

There was a rustle up the staircase, and he was alone in the library, to
take himself home as he might.

VI

After a week Electra had made no sign toward acceptance of the unbidden
guest. She received Peter sweetly and kindly whenever he went to see
her, but he felt they were very far apart. Something had been destroyed;
the bubble of pleasure was broken and, as it seemed, for good and all.
He st