o
prevent such outrage--especially on you!" She spoke vehemently, striding
to and fro in the little room, and brushing back from time to time the
heavy brown hair that in her excitement fell in disordered locks on her
forehead. "It's too wicked. It's too monstrous. It's intolerable. God
doesn't allow such things to happen on earth, otherwise He wouldn't be
God! No, no; you cannot make me think that such things happen. You work!
The Mater Dolorosa herself was not called upon to bear such humiliation.
If God reigns, as they say He does--"

"But, Diane dear," Mrs. Eveleth interrupted, gently, "isn't it true that
we owe it to George's memory to bear our troubles bravely?"

"I'm ready to bear anything bravely--but this."

"But isn't this the case, above all others, in which you and I should be
unflinching? Doesn't any lack of courage on our parts imply a reflection
on him?"

"That's true," Diane said, stopping abruptly.

"I don't know how far you honor George's memory--?"

"George's memory? Why shouldn't I honor it?"

"I didn't know. Some women--after what you've just discovered--"

"I am not--some women! I am Diane Eveleth. Whatever George did I shared
it, and I share it still."

"Then you forgive him?"

"Forgive him?--I?--forgive him? No! What have I to forgive? Anything he
did he did for me and in order to have the more to give me--and I love
him and honor him as I never did till now."

Mrs. Eveleth rose and stood unsteadily beside her desk.

"God bless you for saying that, Diane."

"There's no reason why He should bless me for saying anything so
obvious."

"It isn't obvious to me, Diane; and you must let _me_ bless you--bless
you with the mother's blessing, which, I think, must be next to God's."

Then opening her arms wide, she sobbed the one word "Come!" and they had
at last the comfort, dear to women, of weeping in each other's arms.

III

In the private office of the great Franco-American banking-house of Van
Tromp & Co., the partners, having finished their conference, were about
to separate.

"That's all, I think," said Mr. Grimston. He rose with a jerky movement,
which gave him the appearance of a little figure shot out of a box.

Mr. van Tromp remained seated at the broad, flat-topped desk, his head
bent at an angle which gave Mr. Grimston a view of the tips of shaggy
eyebrows, a broad nose, and that peculiar kind of protruding lower lip
before which timid people quail. As there was