piazza. It was the low, angry challenge of her
soldier-mother, nipped in the act of charging upon the summer-house.

"_Carlisle_!... In heaven's name, what have you been doing?"

Facing mamma on the deserted piazza-end, Carlisle explained in a hurried
sentence that Mr. Dalhousie had sent a pleading friend to her, whom she
had felt obliged to see....

"Are you _mad_ to say such a thing? Was it for wild antics of this sort
that I threw everything to the winds to bring you down here?"

"Oh, mamma--please!" said Carlisle, her breath coming fast. "I've had
about enough.... I--I couldn't run the risk of his starting heaven knows
what scandalous story. Where is Mr. Canning?"

Mamma looked as if she wanted to shake her.

"You may well ask," she said, savagely, and turned away.

"I do ask," said Carlisle, with returning spirit. "Where is he?"

Mrs. Heth wheeled on her.

"Did you suppose he would hang about kicking his heels for hours while
you hobnobbed with low men in dark summer-houses? He just excused
himself on the ground of a cold caught on the piazza, and has retired
for the night. You shall do the same. Come with me."

Carlisle went with her.

* * * * *

And next morning, Sunday, the very first news that greeted the two
ladies, upon their appearance for a late breakfast, was that Mr. Canning
and Mr. Kerr had left the Beach for town by the nine-twenty-two train.

VI

Of Carlisle's Bewilderment over all the Horrid Talk; of how
it wasn't her fault that Gossip was so Unreliable; of the
Greatest Game in the World; also, of Mr. Heth, who didn't
look like a Shameless Homicide.

The explosion that followed the boat occurrence at the Beach came as a
complete surprise to the heroine of the small affair. When she had
terminated the interview in the summer-house, she understood that she
was giving the signal for talk to cease and all trouble to proceed to
blow over. The want of coooeeration on the part of talk and trouble was
gross, to say the least of it. The tide of excited questions and comment
that poured in on and around Carlisle, upon her return to town on
Monday, resembled the breaking of flood-gates. Her small and entirely
private misadventure had become her world's sensation. And within a day
there came a climax which secretly astonished and frightened her not a
little. The primal blood-tie itself was severed for offended
righteousness' sake. T