sewn on a new dress. Eunice
generally did such little tasks for her mistress, but on this occasion
it was to be Agnes. The girl sat down with the rich robe by the window,
and bent assiduously over her work. Miss Danton, in a loose negligee,
lying half buried in the depths of a great carved and cushioned chair,
watched her askance while pretending to read. What a slender, diminutive
creature she was--how fixedly pale, paler still in contrast with her
black hair and great, melancholy dark eyes. She never looked up--she
went on, stitch, stitch, like any machine, until Kate spoke, suddenly:

"Agnes!"

The dark eyes lifted inquiringly.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"You don't look it. Are your parents living?"

"No; dead these many years."

"Have you brothers or sisters?"

"No, I never had."

"But you have other relatives--uncles, aunts, cousins?"

"No, Miss Danton--none that I have ever seen."

"What an isolated little thing you are! Have you lived in Montreal all
your life?"

"Oh, no! I have only been in Montreal a few months. I was born and
brought up in New York."

"In New York!" repeated Kate, surprised. And then there was a pause.
When had Doctor Danton been in New York? For the last four years he had
been in Germany; from Germany he had come direct to Canada, so Grace had
told her; where, then, had he known this New York girl?

"Why did you come to Montreal?" asked Kate.

There was a nervous contraction around the girl's mouth, and something
seemed to fade out of her face--not color, for she had none--but it
darkened with something like sudden anguish.

"I had a friend," she said hastily, "a friend I lost; I heard I might
find that--that friend in Montreal, and so--"

Her voice died away, and she put up one trembling hand to shade her
face. Kate came over and touched the hand lying on her black dress,
caressingly. She forgot her pride, as she often forgot it in her womanly
pity.

"My poor little Agnes! Did you find that friend?"

"No."

"No?" repeated Kate.

She thought the reply would be "yes"--she had thought the friend was
Doctor Frank. Agnes dropped her hand from before her face.

"No," she said sadly, "I have not found him. I shall never find him
again in this world, I am afraid."

Him! That little tell-tale pronoun! Kate knew by instinct the friend was
"him," men being at the bottom of all womanly distress in this lower
world.

"Then it was not Doctor Danton?"

Agnes lo