lf-open window,
and sent a delicate breath, from Alice's great bowl of freesia lilies,
through the peaceful room. The fire snapped smartly about a fresh log,
and Alice's great tortoise-shell cat came to make a majestic spring into
her lap.

"Chris--I'm so worried!" said his wife.

"As a matter of fact," said Christopher, quietly, after a while,
"did----Annie was very ill, I know, but was there--was there any reason
to suppose that there might have been--that such a situation as to-day's
might have arisen?"

Alice looked at him with apprehension dawning afresh.

"Oh, yes--that is, I believe so. I didn't know it then, of course."

"I never knew that," Christopher said, thoughtfully.

"Well, I didn't at the time, you know. It was--of course it was
sixteen--eighteen years ago," Alice said. And in a whisper she added,
"Chris, that girl is eighteen!"

Christopher pursed his lips to whistle, but made no sound, and looked
into the fire.

"You see I was only about thirteen or fourteen," Alice said. "I was
going to Miss Bennet's school, and we were all living in the Madison
Avenue house. Papa had been dead only a year, or less, for I remember
that Annie was eighteen, and wasn't going out much, because of mourning.
Theodore had been worrying Mama to death, and had left the house then,
and Mama was sending him and his wife money, I believe, but of course
lots of that was kept from me. Annie was terribly wild and excitable
then, always doing reckless things; I can remember when she and Belle
Duer dressed up as boys and had their pictures taken, and once they put
a matrimonial advertisement in the papers--of course they were just
silly--at least that was. But then she began to rave about this man
Mueller----"

"The acrobat!" Christopher, who was listening intently, supplied.

"No, dearest! He was their riding master--I suppose that isn't much
better, really. But he was an extremely handsome man--really stunning.
Carry Winchester's mother forbade her taking any more lessons because
_she_ was so wild about him, and Annie told me once that that was why
Ida Burnett was popped into a boarding school. He was big, and dark, and
he had a slight foreign accent, and he was ever so much older than
Annie--forty, at least. She began to spend all her time at the riding
club; it used to make Mama wild--especially as Annie was so headstrong
and saucy about it! Poor Mama, I remember her crying and complaining!"

"And how long did this g