the
heart--the heart is a little--?"

He smiled and at the same time he sighed. "Heart's all right. But you've
left off your tonic."

She had, she was afraid that so much poison--

"Poison?" (He was not in the least offended.) "Do you mean the arsenic?
There are some poisons you can't live without; but you must take them in
moderation."

"Will you--will you want to see me again?"

"It will not be necessary."

At that Mrs. Moon's chuckle broke all bounds and burst into a triumphant
"Tchee-tchee-chee!" He went away under cover of it. It was her way of
putting a pleasant face on the matter.

She hardly waited till his back was turned before she delivered herself
of that which was working within her.

"I tell you what it is, Juliana; you're a silly woman."

Miss Quincey looked up with a faint premonitory fear. Her fingers began
nervously buttoning and unbuttoning her dress bodice; while half-dressed
and shivering she waited the attack.

"And a pretty exhibition you've made of yourself this day. Anybody might
have thought you _wanted_ to let that young man see what was the matter
with you."

"So I did. He says there is nothing the matter with me."

"Nothing the matter with you, indeed! _He_ knows well enough what's the
matter with you."

The victim was staring now, with terror in her tired eyes. Her mouth
dropped open with the question her tongue refused to utter.

"If you," continued Mrs. Moon, "had wanted to tell him plainly that you
were in love with him, you couldn't have set about it better. I should
have thought you'd have been ashamed to look him in the face--at your
age. You're a disgrace to my family!"

The poor fingers ceased their labour of buttoning and unbuttoning; Miss
Quincey sat with her shoulders naked as it were to the lash.

"There!" said Mrs. Moon with an air of drawing back the whip and putting
it by for the present. "If I were you I'd cover myself up, and not sit
there catching cold with my dress-body off."

CHAPTER X

Miss Quincey Stands Back

As it happened on a Saturday morning she had plenty of time to think
about it. All the afternoon and the evening and the night lay before her;
she was powerless to cope with Sunday and the night beyond that.

The remarkable revelation made to her by Mrs. Moon was so great a shock
that her mind refused to realize it all at once. It was an outrage to all
the meek reticences and chastities of her spirit. But she owned its
truth; s