he materials. That's her business. She's
celebrated for it in America."

"Then I daresay you can work this up into something worth reading, for a
certain sort of book," Marie answered. "But--just in the telling it
isn't quite--quite--well, Angelo and I can stand it of course, but
Mary--I must think of her, you know. And I don't see how our opinion can
be of much use to you and Miss Jewett. So what is the use----"

"Of going on?" Idina caught her up, in a voice of iron or steel. "But I
particularly want Angelo's opinion as to what the end of the story
should be. It's for a man to judge. If it bores you to listen, and you
don't think it's proper for Miss Grant----" She paused significantly,
and her look flung venom. But she had not fully counted on her cousin's
loyalty to his wife, his indifference, almost amounting to dislike at
last, for herself.

"Don't you feel, Idina," he interposed with a deadly quietness she knew
to be a danger-signal, "that any story which--er--bores my wife had
better be left untold in her house? If you really wish to have my
opinion on this plot of which you think so much, write the rest out for
me, and I'll let you have my verdict."

With a swift movement Idina stood up. For once the statue-white face was
flushed with a dull, disagreeable red which made her almost ugly. She
looked tall and forbidding. "Write!" she repeated in a tone of
suppressed fury, deep as a man's. "Do you think my letter would ever
come to your eyes? _She_ would destroy it before it could get to
you--cunning cat that she is. You fool, it's her story I've been
telling you--your wife's. She lived with that man--went to Russia with
him----"

"Be silent!"

The two words cut short the torrent pouring from Idina's lips, as a
block of ice might dam a rushing stream. But it was the look in Angelo's
eyes, even more than his command, which shocked Idina into silence. She
knew then that as much as he loved his wife, he hated her, Idina, and
that nothing on earth could ever change his hate back into indifference.
She knew that if she were a man he would by this time have killed her.
The knowledge was anguish almost beyond bearing, yet the irrevocability
of what she had done spurred her on after the first instant.

"I'll _not_ be silent!" she panted. "For your father's sake. You've
disgraced him in marrying this woman----"

"Go," Angelo said, "unless you wish to be turned out by my servants, you
and your friend whom you broug