stible
heart could have met as she did the demands for sympathy, of various
shades, made by the chief participants in the drama; while there was one
phase of the action which called for a heroic display of conscience.

It was impossible now to contemplate Marion Grimston's peril without a
grave sense of the duties imposed by friendship. Some people might stand
by and see a girl wreck her happiness by giving her heart to an unworthy
suitor, but Miss van Tromp was not among that number. It was, in fact,
one of those junctures at which all her good instincts prompted her to
say, "I ought to go and tell her." As a patriotic spinster, she held
decided views on the question of marriage between American heiresses and
impecunious foreign noblemen--and, in her eyes, all foreign noblemen
were impecunious--in any case; but to see Marion Grimston become the
victim of her parents' vulgar ambition gave to the subject a personal
bearing which made her duty urgent. If ever there was a moment when a
goddess in a machine could feel justified in descending, for active
intervention, it was now. She had the less hesitation in doing so, owing
to the fact that she had known Marion since her cradle; and between the
two there had always existed the subtle tie which not seldom binds the
widely diverse but essentially like-minded together. Accordingly, on a
bright May morning, within a few days of the last meeting between Derek
Pruyn and Diane Eveleth, she sallied forth to the fashionable quarter
where Mrs. Bayford dwelt, coming home, some two hours later, with a
considerably extended knowledge of the possibilities inherent in human
nature.

The tale Miss Lucilla told was that which had already been many times
repeated, each narrator lending to it the color imparted by his own
views of life. As now set forth, it became the story of a girl sought in
marriage by a man who has inflicted mortal wrong upon an innocent young
woman. With unconscious art Miss Lucilla placed Marion Grimston herself
in the centre of the piece, making the subsidiary characters revolve
around her. This situation brought with it a double duty: the one
explicit in righting the oppressed, the other implicit--for Miss Lucilla
balked at putting it too plainly into words--in punishing a wicked
marquis.

The girl sat with head slightly bowed and rich color deepening. If she
showed emotion at all, it was in her haughty stillness, as though she
voluntarily put all expression out o