mima calmly, "I'll have her brought to you."

"A dying woman? Jemmy, don't be silly!" Kate spoke with an asperity that
brought a wide grin to Big Liza's face, because it sounded as though the
Madam were come back again.

Jemima, alarmed, continued to protest; at last ran to the telephone and
called Dr. Jones to her assistance. Meanwhile Kate, scolded at, fussed
over, but in the end helped by her cook, got into out-door clothes; and
before Doctor Jones was on his way to Storm, she had taken the road for
the village.

She sat erect in her surrey, pale, but scorning the proffered arm of
Jemima, driven by a proud and anxious coachman behind the quietest pair
of horses in the stable; and people as she passed stared at her with
utter amaze--with more; with a delight that rose in some cases to the
point of tears. For the first time, Kate realized that she had won
something besides respect and dependence and fear from her realm. She
had won love. The realization pierced through her apathy. A faint color
came into her cheeks. More than once, as she paused to exchange
greetings with some beaming and incoherent acquaintance, her own lips
were tremulous.

"Why are they so glad to see me, Jemmy?" she asked once. "Did they think
I was very ill?"

Her daughter nodded, not trusting her own voice. It seemed as if a
miracle had occurred before her eyes.

"Well, I've fooled them," smiled Kate, drawing into her lungs a great
breath of the keen, rain-swept air that was bringing new life into a
world done with winter.

She asked one other question as they drove. "Jemmy, what does the
neighborhood think about--Jacqueline?"

Jemima explained that she had allowed the impression to go abroad that
Philip and Jacqueline had taken advantage of an opportunity to go to
Europe on a belated honeymoon journey.

She did not say, because she did not know, that the countryside, always
with an interested eye upon its betters, had connected the extreme
suddenness of this journey with Philip's vanished father, picturing to
itself touching death-bed scenes, and eleventh-hour repentances.
Remembering the Madam's brief illness at the time of Dr. Benoix'
disappearance, the neighborhood had connected her present illness also
with its romantic imaginings; with the result that what was left of its
disapproval had been swallowed up in a sudden and quite human wave of
sympathy for that faithful woman and the man she loved.

When they reached a neat little