, tell me--tell me honestly--_how
do you feel_?"

"I feel--" Pixie raised both hands, and moved them up and down above her
shoulders, as though balancing a heavy load--"as though a great ton
weight had been rolled off my shoulders. ... Bridgie! You are angry; I
was angry too, but now I've had time to think. ... There have been two
and a half years since he went away--that's about nine hundred days. ...
Bridgie! If you only knew it--there's not been one day out of all that
nine hundred when you hadn't more cause to pity me than you have
to-day!--"

Suddenly, passionately, she burst into tears.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days later Bridgie Victor returned home. The need for chaperonage
was over, and it was abundantly evident that Pixie was in no need of
consolation. The first shock of disillusionment over, it was
pre-eminently relief that she felt--relief from a bond which had weighed
more and more heavily as time passed by. If Stanor had come home,
looking his old self, caring for her, depending on her as he had done
during the days of their brief engagement, she would have been ready and
willing to give him her life, but it had been a strange man who had
entered the sitting-room of the little flat, a man with a strange face,
and a strange voice, and a heart that belonged to another girl. Pixie
was _free_; the bonds which had bound her were loosed, and with each
hour that passed her liberty became more sweet. She shared in her
sister's relief that the understanding with Stanor had been known to no
one outside the family, for no human girl enjoys being pitied for such
an experience, and Pixie had her own full share of conceit. It was
comforting to know that there would be no talk, no fuss; that she could
go her way, free from the consciousness of watching eyes.

On the morning of Bridgie's departure two letters arrived by the first
post, and were read in silence by their respective owners. Bridgie's
was in a man's handwriting, and the perusal of its lines brought a flush
to her cheeks and the glimmer of tears to her eyes. She put it in her
pocket when she had finished reading, and remained densely oblivious of
her sister's hints.

"What does he say?"

"Who?"

"Mr Glynn, of course. Don't pretend! I know his writing."

"He's very ... very--I don't know exactly _what_ he is, Pixie. He is as
we all were at first--upset!"

"What does he say?"

"O