airs, to see the world a bit. It's sad after the way that she
used to enjoy life. Father's death was a great shock to her."

It was sad. Maggie remembered how fond she had been of her food. Like a
waxen image! Like a waxen image! The whole room was ghoulish and
unnatural.

"I've asked you to come and see me, Mrs. Trenchard," continued Miss
Warlock, "not because we can have any wish to meet, I am sure. We have
never liked one another. But I have something on my conscience, and I
may not have another opportunity of speaking to you. I don't suppose
you have heard that very shortly I intend to enter a nunnery at
Roehampton."

"And your mother?" asked Maggie.

"Mother will go into a Home," answered Miss Warlock.

There was a strange little sound from the sofa like a rat nibbling
behind the wainscot.

"I must tell you," said Miss Warlock, speaking apparently with some
difficulty, "that I have done you a wrong. Shortly after my father's
death my brother wrote to you from Paris."

"Wrote to me?" repeated Maggie.

"Yes--wrote to you through me. I destroyed the letters. He wrote then
five times in rather swift succession. I destroyed all the letters."

Maggie said nothing.

"I destroyed the letters," continued Amy Warlock, "because I did not
wish you and my brother to come together. I did not wish you to, simply
out of hatred for you both. I thought that my brother killed my
father--whom--whom--I loved. I knew that the one human being whom
Martin had ever loved beside his father was yourself. He did love you,
Mrs. Trenchard, more truly than I had believed it in his power to love
any one. I think you could have made him happy--therefore I did not
wish you to meet again."

There was a pause. Maggie said at last:

"Were there no other letters?"

"Yes," said Miss Warlock. "One this summer. For more than a year there
was nothing; then this summer, a little one. I destroyed that too."

"What did it say?" asked Maggie.

"It said that the woman to whom he had been married was dead. He said
that if you didn't answer this letter he would understand that you
would not want to hear from him any more. He had been very ill."

"Where did he write that?"

"In Paris."

"And where is he now?"

"I don't know. I have heard from him no more."

Maggie got up and stood, her head raised as though listening for
something.

"You've been very cruel, Miss Warlock," she said.

"Perhaps I have," said Miss Warlock. "But you cannot