st time addressed Miss
Huntington.

"I want you to show me about these grounds," he said, speaking so that
both ladies could hear him. He rose, and both walked out of the parlor.
When Mrs. Nailor came out, Keith and his guide were nowhere to be found,
so she had to wait; but a half-hour afterwards he and Miss Huntington
came back from the stables.

As they drove out of the grounds they passed a good-looking young fellow
just going in. Keith recognized Dr. Locaman.

"That is the young man who is so attentive to your young friend," said
Mrs. Nailor; "Dr. Locaman. He saved her life and now is going to
marry her."

It gave Keith a pang.

"I know him. He did not save her life. If anybody did that, it was an
old country doctor, Dr. Balsam."

"That old man! I thought he was dead years ago."

"Well, he is not. He is very much alive."

A few evenings later Keith found Mrs. Lancaster in the hotel. He had
just arrived from The Lawns when Mrs. Lancaster came down to dinner. Her
greeting was perfect. Even Mrs. Nailor was mystified. She had never
looked handsomer. Her black gown fitted perfectly her trim figure, and a
single red rose, half-blown, caught in her bodice was her only ornament.
She possessed the gift of simplicity. She was a beautiful walker, and as
she moved slowly down the long dining-room as smoothly as a piece of
perfect machinery, every eye was upon her. She knew that she was being
generally observed, and the color deepened in her cheeks and added the
charm of freshness to her beauty.

"By Jove! what a stunning woman!" exclaimed a man at a table near by to
his wife.

"It is not difficult to be 'a stunning woman' in a Worth gown, my dear,"
she said sweetly. "May I trouble you for the Worcestershire?"

Keith's attitude toward Mrs. Lancaster puzzled even so old a veteran as
Mrs. Nailor.

Mrs. Nailor was an adept in the art of inquisition. To know about her
friends' affairs was one of the objects of her life, and it was not only
the general facts that she insisted on knowing: she proposed to be
acquainted with their deepest secrets and the smallest particulars. She
knew Alice Lancaster's views, or believed she did; but she had never
ventured to speak on the subject to Gordon Keith. In fact, she stood in
awe of Keith, and now he had mystified her by his action. Finally, she
could stand it no longer, and so next evening she opened fire on Keith.
Having screwed her courage to the sticking-point, she attacked