esterday. I must keep quiet for a
little."

Mrs. Borisoff herself was in no talkative frame of mind. She, too, an
observer might have imagined, had some care or worry. The two very soon
parted; Irene going back to her room, Helen out into the sunshine.

A malicious letter this of Olga's; the kind of letter which Irene had
not thought her capable of penning. Could there be any substantial
reason for such hostile feeling? Oh, how one's mind opened itself to
dark suspicion, when once an evil whisper had been admitted!

She would not believe that story of duplicity, of baseness. Her very
soul rejected it, declared it impossible, the basest calumny. Yet how
it hurt! How it humiliated! Chiefly, perhaps, because of the evil art
with which Olga had reminded her of Piers Otway's disreputable kinsmen.
Could the two elder brothers be so worthless, and the younger an
honest, brave man, a man without reproach--her ideal?

Irene clutched at the recollection which till now she had preferred to
banish from her mind. Piers was not born of the same mother, might he
not inherit his father's finer qualities, and, together with them,
something noble from the woman whom his father loved? Could she but
know that history The woman was a law-breaker; repeatability gave her
hard names; but Irene used her own judgment in such matters, and asked
only for knowledge of facts. She had as good as forgotten the
irregularity of Piers Otway's birth. Whom, indeed, did it or could it
concern? Her father, least of all men, would dwell upon it as a subject
of reproach. But her father was very capable of pointing to Daniel and
Alexander, with a shake of the head. He had a prejudice against
Piers--this letter reminded her of it only too well. It might be feared
that he was rather glad than otherwise of the "sheer scandal" Olga had
conveyed to him.

Confident in his love of her, which would tell ill on the side of his
reasonableness, his justice, she had not, during these crucial days,
thought much about her father. She saw his face now, if she spoke to
him of Piers. Dr. Derwent, like all men of brains, had a good deal of
the aristocratic temper; he scorned the vulgarity of the vulgar; he
turned in angry impatience from such sorry creatures as those two men;
and often lashed with his contempt the ignoble amusements of the crowd.
Olga doubtless had told him of the singer in short skirts----

She shed a few tears. The very meanness of the injury done her at