suspect that's where your Lowestoft teapot came in--and
with the money thus gained they left town. Until they could go, they
scarcely showed themselves once on the street, they were never at home
to callers, and they left without telling one soul where they were
going, so far as we could ever learn."

"Why, the poor dears!" cried Billy. "How they must have suffered! But
things will be different now. You'll go to see them, of course, and--"
At the look that came into Arkwright's face, she stopped in surprise.

"You forget; they wouldn't wish to see me," demurred the man. And again
Billy noticed the odd constraint in his voice.

"But they wouldn't mind _you--here_," argued Billy.

"I'm afraid they would. In fact, I'm sure they'd refuse entirely to see
me."

Billy's eyes grew determined.

"But they can't refuse--if I bring about a meeting just casually, you
know," she challenged.

Arkwright laughed.

"Well, I won't pretend to say as to the consequences of that," he
rejoined, rising to his feet; "but they might be disastrous. Wasn't it
you yourself who were telling me a few minutes ago how steely cold Miss
Alice's eyes got when she was angry?"

Billy knew by the way the man spoke that, for some reason, he did not
wish to prolong the subject of his meeting the Greggorys. She made a
quick shift, therefore, to another phase of the matter.

"But tell me, please, before you go, how did those rumors come
out--about Judge Greggory's honesty, I mean?"

"Why, I never knew, exactly," frowned Arkwright, musingly. "Yet it
seems, too, that mother did say in one letter, while I was in Paris,
that some of the accusations had been found to be false, and that there
was a prospect that the Judge's good name might be saved, after all."

"Oh, I wish it might," sighed Billy. "Think what it would mean to those
women!"

"'Twould mean everything," cried Arkwright, warmly; "and I'll write
to mother to-night, I will, and find out just what there is to it-if
anything. Then you can tell them," he finished a little stiffly.

"Yes--or you," nodded Billy, lightly. And because she began at once to
speak of something else, the first part of her sentence passed without
comment.

The door had scarcely closed behind Arkwright when Billy turned to Aunt
Hannah a beaming face.

"Aunt Hannah, did you notice?" she cried, "how Mary Jane looked and
acted whenever Alice Greggory was spoken of? There was something between
them--I'm sure there was;