you hoped to--when
you left St. Ellis."

Joan started. She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin
resting on her clasped hands. Mercy Lascelles observed the start, but
offered no comment. She waited. She could afford to wait. She had read
and understood the girl's letter. Besides, there was something else in
her mind. Something else which required piecing into the web which
linked their lives together. She knew that it held an important place,
but its exact position her busy brain was still groping to resolve.

"Do you want me to talk about--those things?" the girl asked half
appealingly. "Is it necessary? I am very happy, auntie, so happy that
I don't want to risk losing a moment of it. I have not always been
happy since I came here."

The hard, gray eyes suddenly lifted to the girl's face, and there was
mocking in their depths.

"You mentioned them light-heartedly enough in your letter. You spoke
of the death of two men to point your assurance that their death had
nothing to do with your--fate. Some one had reassured you. Some one
had made plain the absurdity that such a fate could ever be. Some one
had shown you that such convictions only lived in the human mind and
had no actual place in the scheme of things. Surely with this
wonderful truth behind you, you need not shrink from details of things
which have no connection with your life."

The icy sarcasm would not be denied. It was the old note Joan had been
so familiar with. Its sting was as poignant as ever, but somehow now
it stirred her to a defense of those who had come to her aid in her
direst need.

But this was her aunt's first day on the farm. She felt she must
restrain herself. She tried to smile, but it was a weakly attempt.

"You are quite unchanged, auntie," she said.

"I might say the same of you, Joan," came the sharp retort.

But Joan shook her head.

"You would be quite wrong. I have changed so much that you can never
make me believe again in--all that which you made me believe before.
Let me be frank. Nothing but my conviction that I am no more cursed by
an evil fate than is every other living creature would have induced me
to ask you here. I have asked you to come here and share my home
because you are my aunt, my only relative, who has been good to me in
the past. Because I am lonely here without you, and--and--oh, don't
you understand? There are only us two left. Yes, I want to be with
you." She broke off, but in a moment