"

He observed her as she spoke, and let silence follow. "You would like
to know it--the address?" she added, meeting his look with a rather
defiant steadiness.

"No, thank you. It will be enough if I know where they finally settle.
You saw Mrs. Elgar before she left?"

"No."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Miriam's face was clouded. She sat very stiffly, and averted her eyes
as if to ignore his remark. Mallard, who had been holding his hat and
stick in conventional manner, threw them both aside, and leaned his
elbow on the back of the settee.

"I should like," he said deliberately, "to ask you a question which
sounds impertinent, but which I think you will understand is not really
so. Will you tell me how you regard Mrs. Elgar? I mean, is it your wish
to be still as friendly with her as you once were? Or do you, for
whatever reason, hold aloof from her?"

"Will you explain to me, Mr. Mallard, why you think yourself justified
in asking such a question?"

In both of them there were signs of nervous discomposure. Miriam
flushed a little; the artist moved from one attitude to another, and
began to play destructively with a tassel.

"Yes," he answered. "I have a deep interest in Mrs. Elgar's
welfare--_that_ needs no explaining--and I have reason to fear that
something in which I was recently concerned may have made you less
disposed to think of her as I wish you to. Is it so or not?"

Her answer was uttered with difficulty.

"What can it matter howl think of her?"

"That is the point. To my mind it matters a great deal. For instance,
it seems to me a deplorable thing that you, her sister in more senses
than one, should have kept apart from her when she so much needed a
woman's sympathy. Of course, if you had no true sympathy to give her,
there's an end of it. But it seems to me strange that it should be so.
Will you put aside conventionality, and tell me if you have any
definite reason for acting as if you and she were strangers?"

Miriam was mute. Her questioner waited, observing her. At length she
spoke with painful impulsiveness.

"I can't talk with you on this subject."

"I am very sorry to distress you," Mallard continued, his voice growing
almost harsh in its determination, "but talk of it we must, once for
all. Your brother came to my studio one morning, and demanded an
explanation of something about his wife which he had heard from you. He
didn't _say_ that it came from you, but I have the conviction