t _possible_ you
don't know? It _is_ your Mrs. Pendleton."

Mrs. Howard remained looking at her friend. Once or twice her lips moved
but no words came.

"Her husband is dead," she said at last, faintly.

The caller laughed. "Then he must have died yesterday. Why, didn't you
know that was the reason she spent last year in Colorado?"

"For her husband's health," gasped Mrs. Howard, clinging to the last
shred of her six months' belief in Mrs. Pendleton's widowhood. "I always
had an impression that it was there he died."

The other woman laughed heartlessly. "Did she tell you he was dead?"

Mrs. Howard collected her scattered faculties and tried to think.

"No," she said at last. "Now that you speak of it, I don't believe she
ever did. But she certainly gave that impression. She seemed to be
always telling of his last illness and his last days. She never actually
mentioned the details of his death--but then, how could she--poor
thing?"

"She couldn't, of course. That would have been asking too much." Mrs.
Howard's guest went off again into peals of unseemly laughter.

When her caller had left, Mrs. Howard climbed up to the chilly skylight
room occupied by her daughter and dropped upon the bed, exclaiming:

"Well, I never would have believed it of Mrs. Pendleton!"

Elsie, who was standing before her mirror, regarded her mother in the
glass.

"What's up. Has she eloped with Billie Barlow at last?"

Mrs. Howard tried to say it, but became inarticulate with emotion. After
five minutes of preamble and exclamation, her daughter was in possession
of the fact.

"That explains about her hair," was Elsie's only comment. "I am so
relieved to have it settled at last."

"Why didn't she tell me?" wailed Mrs. Howard.

"Oh, people don't always tell those things."

Mrs. Howard was silent.

As they passed the parlor door on their way down to dinner, Mrs.
Pendleton's merry laugh rang out and Elsie caught a glimpse of the
golden hair under the red lamp and the fugitive glimpse of Mr. Barlow's
bald spot.

About two days later, as the girl came in from an afternoon's shopping,
and was on her way upstairs, her mother called to her. Something in the
sound of it attracted her attention. She hurried down the few steps and
into her mother's room. Mrs. Howard was sitting over by the window in
the fading light, with a strange look upon her face. An open telegram
lay in her lap. Elsie went up to her quickly.

"What is it, mothe