the unexplained ground that
there had been a misunderstanding between her husband and herself, on
the one side, and Jasper Fay on the other. "I don't _know_ that I can
help her. I dare say I can't. But if I could only see her--"

"Well, then, you shall see her. Just wait a minute while I change me
coat and I'll go along with you."

On the way up the hill Lois questioned him about the Fays. "Did you know
much of the boy?"

"Enough to see that he wasn't a thief--not by nature, that is. He's what
might have been expected from his parents--the stuff out of which they
make revolutionists and anarchists. He came into the world with desires
thwarted, as you might say, and a detairmination to get even. He didn't
steal; he took money. He took money because they needed it at home, and
other people had it. He took it more in protest than in greed, if that's
any excuse for him."

"The mother is better, isn't she?"

"She's clothed and in her right mind, if she'll only stay that way. She
gets into one of her old tantrums every now and then; but I'm in hopes
that the daughter's trouble will end them."

This hope seemed to be partially fulfilled in the welcoming way in which
the door was opened to their knock. "I've brought you me friend, Mrs.
Thor Masterman," was the old gentleman's form of introduction. "She
wants to see Rosie. If Fay makes any trouble, tell him it's my wish."

"I've really only come to see Rosie, Mrs. Fay," Lois explained, not
without nervousness, when the two women were alone on the door-step.
"No, I won't go in, thank you, not if she's anywhere about the place.
I'm really very anxious to have a talk with her."

Having feared a hostile reception, she was relieved to be answered with
a certain fierce cordiality. "I'm sure I hope you'll get it. It's more'n
her father and I can do."

"Perhaps she'd talk to me. Girls often will talk to a--to a stranger,
when they won't to one of their own."

"Well, you can try." In spite of the coldness of the handsome features,
something in the nature of a new life, a new softening humanity, was
struggling to assert itself. "_We_ can't get a word out of her. She'll
neither speak, nor sleep, nor eat, nor do a hand's turn. It's the work
that bothers me most--not so much that it needs to be done as because
it'd be a relief to her." She added, with a shy wistfulness that
contrasted oddly with the hard glint in her eyes, "I've found that out
myself."

"Have you any idea where