was slow, and I just missed the train. However,
I'm here all right."

She looked at Kettering.

"Do you live near here?" she asked him.

"No; but I am hoping to soon," he said; and again she wondered if it
were only her imagination that his eyes turned once more to Christine.

When they got back to the house he bade them "good-bye." The big car
was still waiting in the drive; its headlights were lit now, and they
shone through the darkness like watchful eyes.

"Who is he, anyway?" Gladys asked Christine bluntly, when Kettering had
driven off. Christine shook her head.

"I don't know; he came down in the train with me, and we had lunch at
the same table, and he spoke. He was coming down here to look at our
house, and so--well, we came up together."

"What do you think Jimmy would say?"

"Jimmy!" There was such depths of bitterness in Christine's voice that
the elder girl stared.

"Jimmy! He wouldn't care what I did, or what became of me. I--I--I'm
never going to live with him any more."

Gladys opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again.

She had guessed that there had been something behind that urgent wire
from Jimmy, but she wisely asked no questions. They went back into the
house together.

"You'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now,"
Christine said hopelessly. She sat down on the rug by the fire, a
forlorn little figure enough in her black frock.

She told the whole story from beginning to end. She blamed nobody; she
just spoke as if the whole thing had been a muddle which nobody could
have foreseen or averted.

Gladys listened silently. She was a very sensible girl; she seldom
gave an impulsive judgment on any subject; but now----

"Jimmy wants his neck wrung," she said vehemently.

Christine looked up with startled eyes.

"Oh, how can you say such a thing!"

"Because it's true." Gladys looked very angry. "He's behaved in a
rotten way; men always do, it seems to me. He married you to spite
this--this other woman, whoever she was! and then--even then he didn't
try to make it up to you, or be ordinarily decent and do his best, did
he?"

"He didn't love me, you see; and so----" Christine defended him.

"He'll never love anyone in the wide world except himself," Gladys
declared disgustedly. "I remember years ago, when we were all kiddies
together, how selfish he was, and how you always gave in to him.
Christine"--she stretched out her hand impuls