o struck the blow sees no change. So was it with
Ermentrude and Lucie.

"We are looking for mother to return next week," added the latter as
Ermentrude stood stark and silent before her. "Would you like to leave a
message for her?"

At these words uttered with the sweetness of a rich and sympathetic
nature, the soul returned to Ermentrude's body. With a long and earnest
look which took in the full measure of the other's personality, radiant
with happiness and the consciousness of an assured wifedom, she answered
softly:

"No, I will leave no message," and turned as if to go.

"Nor any name?" queried Lucie, eying with admiration the noble lines of
a figure with whose perfect proportions her own could never hope to
compete.

"Nor any name," came back in indescribable accents from the doorway.

Lucie paused, and gazing in vague trouble after her rapidly disappearing
visitor, murmured to herself, "Who is she?"

But the one who could have answered her was gone.

* * * * *

"Carleton, you seldom see such a woman. Younger than I, she had the poise
of a woman of thirty. Who could she have been?"

"Describe her."

"I wish I could; I hardly saw her face; it was her figure, her voice, her
way of moving and holding herself. I felt as small and quiet as a little
mouse beside her. Only I was happy and she was not. That much I feel now
that I recall her look in leaving."

"Was she American or--or foreign?" he asked, hiding his trouble, for a
great fear had seized him.

"She had an English accent which added very much to her charm."

"Forget her." For a moment his accent was almost fierce, then he laughed
the matter off, assuring this bride of a month that she made him cross
with her self-depreciation, that there was no one of finer mien and
manner than herself, the chosen of his heart upon whom he always looked
with pride. Which subtle tribute to what was her greatest charm
accomplished its end; she did forget the stranger.

But he did not; he knew what was before him and prepared himself for the
inevitable meeting which would be followed by--what?

Not by what he had every right to expect and evidently did. Ermentrude
had learned all she would both of this marriage and of the woman who had
supplanted her, and had made her resolve. This he saw as they came
together in the isolation of a quiet corner of the Park, and so was not
greatly surprised, though a little moved, as after the fir