ty, "I'm sure Deane would be sorry for any woman who had been
so--unfortunate. And she," she added bravely, "was a dear old friend,
was she not?"

The woman who had commiserated with Edith now nodded approval at Amy.
"You're sweet, my dear," she said, and the benign looks of them all made
her feel there was something for her to be magnanimous about, something
queer. Her resentment intensified because of having to give that
impression of a sweet spirit. And so people talked about Deane's
standing up for this Ruth Holland! _Why_ did they talk?--just what did
they say? "There's more to it than I know," suspicion whispered. In that
last half hour it was hard to appear gracious and interested; she saw a
number of those little groups in which voices were low and faces were
trying not to appear eager.

She wished she knew what they were saying; she had an intense desire to
hear more about this thing which she so resented, which was so roiling
to her. It fascinated as well as galled her; she wanted to know just how
this Ruth Holland looked, how she had looked that night of the wedding,
what she had said and done. The fact of being in the very house where
Ruth Holland had been that last night she was with her friends seemed to
bring close something mysterious, terrible, stirring imagination and
curiosity. Had she been with Deane that night? Had he taken her to the
wedding?--taken her home? She hardened to him in the thought of there
being this thing she did not know about. It began to seem he had done
her a great wrong in not preparing her for a thing that could bring her
embarrassment. Everyone else knew about it! Coming there a bride, and
the very first thing encountering something awkward! She persuaded
herself that her pleasure in this party, in this opening up of her life
there, was spoiled, that Deane had spoiled it. And she tormented herself
with a hundred little wonderings.

She and Cora Albright went home together in Edith's brougham. Cora was
full of talk of Ruth Holland, this new development, Ruth's return,
stirring it all up again for her. Amy's few discreet questions brought
forth a great deal that she wanted to know. Cora had a worldly manner,
and that vague sympathy with evil that poetizes one's self without doing
anything so definite as condoning, or helping, the sinner.

"I do think," she said, with a little shrug, "that the town has been
pretty hard about it. But then you know what these middle-western towns