coming back in
that way. I know she is dead in love with him; but she could only have
accepted him conditionally."

"Conditionally to his making it all right with Stoller?"

"Stoller? No! To her father's liking it."

"Ah, that's quite as hard. What makes you think she accepted him at
all?"

"What do you think she was crying about?"

"Well, I have supposed that ladies occasionally shed tears of pity. If
she accepted him conditionally she would have to tell her father about
it." Mrs. March gave him a glance of silent contempt, and he hastened to
atone for his stupidity. "Perhaps she's told him on the instalment plan.
She may have begun by confessing that Burnamy had been in Carlsbad. Poor
old fellow, I wish we were going to find him in Ansbach! He could make
things very smooth for us."

"Well, you needn't flatter yourself that you'll find him in Ansbach. I'm
sure I don't know where he is."

"You might write to Miss Triscoe and ask."

"I think I shall wait for Miss Triscoe to write to me," she said, with
dignity.

"Yes, she certainly owes you that much, after all your suffering for
her. I've asked the banker in Nuremberg to forward our letters to the
poste restante in Ansbach. Isn't it good to see the crows again, after
those ravens around Carlsbad?"

She joined him in looking at the mild autumnal landscape through the
open window. The afternoon was fair and warm, and in the level fields
bodies of soldiers were at work with picks and spades, getting the
ground ready for the military manoeuvres; they disturbed among the
stubble foraging parties of crows, which rose from time to time with
cries of indignant protest. She said, with a smile for the crows,
"Yes. And I'm thankful that I've got nothing on my conscience, whatever
happens," she added in dismissal of the subject of Burnamy.

"I'm thankful too, my dear. I'd much rather have things on my own. I'm
more used to that, and I believe I feel less remorse than when you're to
blame."

They might have been carried near this point by those telepathic
influences which have as yet been so imperfectly studied. It was
only that morning, after the lapse of a week since Burnamy's furtive
reappearance in Carlsbad, that Miss Triscoe spoke to her father about
it, and she had at that moment a longing for support and counsel that
might well have made its mystical appeal to Mrs. March.

She spoke at last because she could put it off no longer, rather than
because the rig