oding. Her young friends wondered,
questioned, then drifted away gradually. Poor little Patty! No one had
told her; the viper had not been shaken from her nest. Day after day
she waited for the blow to fall, for the tide of scandal to roll over
her and obliterate her. She was worldly enough to know that Mrs.
Franklyn-Haldene was not the kind of woman to keep such a scandal
under lock and key; others must know, Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's
particular friends. So she avoided the possibility of meeting these
friends by declining all invitations of a formal character. Perhaps
after a time it would die of its own accord, to be recalled in after
years by another generation, as such things generally are. Patty
derived no comfort from the paragraph in the Sunday papers announcing
Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's departure for Egypt, to remain for the
winter.

She kept in touch with all that Warrington did. The sense of shame she
had at first experienced in reading his speeches was gone. Her pride
no longer urged her to cast aside the paper, to read it, to fling it
into the flames. Sometimes she saw him on the way home from his
morning rides. It seemed to her that he did not sit as erectly as
formerly. Why should he? she asked herself bitterly. When the heart is
heavy it needs a confidante, but Patty, brave and loyal, denied
herself the luxury of her mother's arms. Tell her this frightful
story? Bow that proud, handsome head? No.

"It is very strange," mused her mother, one evening, "that Mr.
Warrington calls no more. I rather miss his cheerfulness, and John
thinks so much of him."

Patty shivered. "He is very busy, mother. Election is only three days
off, and doubtless he hasn't a minute to call his own."

Nor had he. Pulled this way and that, speaking every night, from one
end of the city to the other, he went over the same ground again and
again, with the same noise, the same fumes of tobacco and whisky and
kerosene, with his heart no longer behind his will. Yes, Warrington
was very busy. He was very unhappy, too. What did he care about the
making up of the slate? What was it to him that this man or that
wanted this or that berth? What were all these things? But he hid his
dissatisfaction admirably. His speeches lacked nothing.

Election day came round finally, and a rare and beautiful day it was.
The ghost of summer had returned to view her past victories. A west
wind had cleared the skies, the sun shone warm and grateful, the
gold