Aggie bent her head lower yet over her work. She thought she could see in
Susie's speech a vindictive and critical intention. All the time she had,
Aggie thought, been choosing her words judicially, so that each
unnecessary eulogy of John should strike at some weak spot in poor Arthur.
She felt that Susie was not above paying off her John's old scores by an
oblique and cowardly blow at the man who had supplanted him. She wished
that Susie would either leave off talking about John, or go.

But Susie still interpreted Aggie's looks as a challenge, and the hymn of
praise swelled on.

"My dear--if John wasn't an angel of goodness and unselfishness--When I
think how useless I am to him, and of all that he has done for me, and all
that he has given up--"

Aggie was trembling. She drew up the coat to shelter her.

"--why it makes my blood boil to think that any one should know him, and
not know what he is."

Aggie dropped the coat in her agitation. As she stooped to pick it up,
Susie put out an anxious arm to help her.

Their eyes met.

"Oh, Aggie, dear--" said Susie. It was all she _could_ say. And her voice
had in it consternation and reproach.

But Aggie faced her.

"Well?" she said, steadily.

"Oh, nothing--" It was Susie's turn for confusion. "Only you said--and we
thought--after what you've been told--"

"What was I told?"

Horror overcame Susie, and she lost her head.

"Weren't you told, then?"

Her horror was reflected in her sister's eyes. But Aggie kept calm.

"Susie" she said, "what do you mean? That I wasn't told of the risk? Is
that what you meant?"

"Oh, Aggie--" Susie was helpless. She could not say what she had meant,
nor whether she had really meant it.

"Who _should_ be told if I wasn't? Surely I was the proper person?"

Susie recovered herself. "Of course, dear, of course you were."

"Well?" Aggie forced the word again through her tight, strained lips.

"I'm not blaming you, Aggie, dear. I know it isn't your fault."

"Whose is it, then?"

Susie's soft face hardened, and she said nothing.

Her silence lay between them; silence that had in it a throbbing heart of
things unutterable; silence that was an accusation, a judgment of the man
that Aggie loved.

Then Aggie turned, and in her immortal loyalty she lied.

"I never told him."

"Never told him? Oh, my dear, you were very wrong."

"Why should I? He was ill. It would have worried him. It worried me less
to keep it to my