hed life, but also
to the humiliation of receiving a lifelong, yet somewhat complacent
pity from Graydon, and possibly the triumphant scorn of her rival?

With these thoughts surging in her mind she locked herself in her room
and sobbed like the broken-hearted girl she felt herself to be. The
passing storm was nothing to her. A heavier storm was raging in her
soul, nor had it ceased when the skies without grew cloudless and
serene. She at last felt that she must do something to maintain her
disguise. Hearing little Jack crying and Mrs. Muir trying to hush him,
she washed her eyes and went to the partially darkened room where the
child was, and said, "Let me take him, Mary, and you go down and see
Henry."

"It's awfully good of you, Madge. The children have been so frightened
that I've been up here all the evening. You seem to have better luck
in quieting Jack than any of us."

"He'll be good with me. Go down at once, and don't worry. You have
hardly had a chance to see Henry."

"You will come down again after Jack goes to sleep?"

"Yes, if I feel like it."

Graydon soon discovered Mrs. Muir after she had joined her husband,
and asked, "Where is Madge?"

"She has kindly taken the baby so that I can spend a little time with
Henry. The children have been frightened, and Jack is very fretful.
I'm tired out, and don't know what I should do if it wasn't for
Madge."

"Why can't the nurse take him?"

"He won't go to her in these bad moods. Madge can quiet him even
better than I. What's the matter that you are so anxious to see Madge?
You have seemed abundantly able to amuse yourself without her the last
few days. Is Mr. Arnault in the way to-night?"

"As if I cared a rap for him!" said Graydon, turning irritably away.

He did care, however, and felt that Miss Wildmere was making too much
use of the liberty she had provided for. She, like many others, could
be half hysterical while the violence of the storm lasted, and yet,
when quiet was restored, was capable of making a jest of her fears
and the most of a delightful conjunction of affairs, which placed two
eligible men at her beck, to either of whom she could become engaged
before she slept. The arrival of her father had turned the scale
decidedly in favor of Mr. Arnault, for the latter, without revealing
his transaction with Mr. Muir, had whispered to Mr. Wildmere his
conviction that Henry Muir was borrowing at ruinous interest. This
information accorded with t