t happened. Claude came rushing home last
Wednesday, and said he had to go right off to Chicago on business. I
helped him pack--and he went."

"Why didn't any one tell me?"

"Well, you haven't been at the house. And it didn't seem important
enough--"

"But it is important, isn't it? Doesn't father think so?"

She tried to look at him frankly. "Your father doesn't know any more
about it than I know--and that's nothing at all. Claude came to him and
said--but I really oughtn't to tell you, Thor. Your father would be
annoyed with me."

"Then it's something that's got to be kept from me."

"N-no; not exactly. It's only poor Claude's secret. We didn't try to
wring it from him because--Oh, Thor, I wish you would let things take
their course. I'm sure it would be best."

"Best to let Claude be a scoundrel?"

"Oh, he couldn't be that. I want to be just to that girl, but we both
know that there are queer things about her. There's that man who's
giving her money--and dear knows what there may be besides. And so if
they _have_ quarreled--"

But Thor rushed away. Having learned all he needed to know on that side,
he must hear what was to be said on the other. He had hoped never again
to be brought face to face with Rosie till she was his brother's wife.
That condition would have dug such a gulf between them that even nature
would be changed. But if she was not to be Claude's wife--if Claude was
becoming a brute to her--then she must see that at least she had a
friend.

His heart was so hot within him as he climbed the hill that he forgot
that Lois would probably be there before him. As a matter of fact, she
was talking to Fay in a corner of the yard, standing in the shade of a
great magnolia that was a pyramid of bloom. All around it the ground was
strewn in a circle with its dead-white petals, each with its flush of
red. Near the house there were yellow clumps of forsythia, while the
hedge of bridal-veil to the south of the grass-plot seemed to have just
received a fall of snow.

Fay confronted him as, slackening his pace, he went toward them; but
Lois turned only at his approach. Her expression was troubled.

"Thor, I wish you'd explain to me what Mr. Fay is saying. He doesn't
want me to see Rosie."

"Why, what's up?"

Fay's expression told him that something serious was up, for it was
ashen. It had grown old and sunken, and the eyes had changed their
starry vagueness to a dulled animosity.

"There's this muc