ing about you and Philip, too,--but never mind that now. Will
you tell me the truth, please? Before my father's death, you and--that
man--loved each other?"

"Yes, Jemima, but--"

The girl silenced her. "And now that he is coming out of prison, you
will go on--being lovers?"

Her mother answered quietly, "I shall marry him, dear, if that is what
you mean."

Without another word, the girl turned and went out of the room. Kate
hurried after her. "Wait, daughter, I haven't finished. There are some
things I must tell you. Where are you going?"

"To tell Jacqueline."

Kate cried out, "No, not Jacqueline! She's too young. Wait, please--"

She followed up the stairs, commanding, pleading. "Wait! I prefer to
tell her myself. Please, please! Jemima, do you hear me? I insist."

Jemima never paused. "My sister must know the truth. I owe that much to
my father. Young or not, Jacqueline is a Kildare," she said stonily at
the door of her room; and shut her mother out into the world of people
who were not Kildares.

All that morning the Madam, greatly to the bewilderment of her
household, wandered about the house in utter idleness, never stopping;
saying to herself reasonably, "I must find something to do. Now is the
time to be doing something;" wondering with that helpless, childlike
egotism of people in great distress, how the sun happened to be shining
so brightly out-of-doors, the birds singing quite as usual.

Invariably her footsteps came back to the door of the room that had been
the nursery. It was there the two tiny cribs had stood, the
rocking-horse, the doll's house, the little desks at which her babies
had lisped their first lessons. It was there they murmured together now
through the endless morning, discussing her fate, sitting in final
judgment upon their mother.

She could not keep away from the door. Sometimes she pressed against it
soundlessly, as if the passionate throbbing of her heart might send a
wave through to reach them, to help them understand. How else could she
help them to understand? Only by blackening now the memory of a father
who was not there to defend himself, a father whom she herself had
taught them to respect and to love.

It was an expedient that did not once occur to Kate Kildare.

"My little girls!" she whispered to herself. "My poor little frightened
babies!"

If only she had been more with them, had taught them to know her better!
In those hours she accused herself of neglec