t set, and eyes
averted; both were very pale. When they reached the door of Gratian's
room the room which had been their mother's--Noel was for passing on, but
Gratian caught her by the arm, and said: "Come in." The fire was burning
brightly in there, and the two sisters stood in front of it, one on each
side, their hands clutching the mantel-shelf, staring at the flames. At
last Noel put one hand in front of her eyes, and said:

"I asked her to tell you."

Gratian made the movement of one who is gripped by two strong emotions,
and longs to surrender to one or to the other.

"It's too horrible," was all she said.

Noel turned towards the door.

"Stop, Nollie!"

Noel stopped with her hand on the door knob. "I don't want to be
forgiven and sympathised with. I just want to be let alone."

"How can you be let alone?"

The tide of misery surged up in Noel, and she cried out passionately:

"I hate sympathy from people who can't understand. I don't want
anyone's. I can always go away, and lose myself."

The words "can't understand" gave Gratian a shock.

"I can understand," she said.

"You can't; you never saw him. You never saw--" her lips quivered so
that she had to stop and bite them, to keep back a rush of tears.

"Besides you would never have done it yourself."

Gratian went towards her, but stopped, and sat down on the bed. It was
true. She would never have done it herself; it was just that which, for
all her longing to help her sister, iced her love and sympathy. How
terrible, wretched, humiliating! Her own sister, her only sister, in the
position of all those poor, badly brought up girls, who forgot
themselves! And her father--their father! Till that moment she had
hardly thought of him, too preoccupied by the shock to her own pride.
The word: "Dad!" was forced from her.

Noel shuddered.

"That boy!" said Gratian suddenly; "I can't forgive him. If you didn't
know--he did. It was--it was--" She stopped at the sight of Noel's face.

"I did know," she said. "It was I. He was my husband, as much as yours
is. If you say a word against him, I'll never speak to you again: I'm
glad, and you would be, if you were going to have one. What's the
difference, except that you've had luck, and I--haven't." Her lips
quivered again, and she was silent.

Gratian stared up at her. She had a longing for George--to know what he
thought and felt.

"Do you mind if I tell George?" she said.

Noel s