mother and father, were due to the fact that Felix was ruthlessly
pressing him to pay back some borrowed money. That was why Mrs. Fenlow
went up to Felix's office and told him what she thought of him. Weeks
ago I went to the boy and tried to reason with him about the way he
was going and persuade him to quit, short off. He told his mother
about that, too, and that was how she happened to mention my name in
their controversy."

"Poor Mrs. Fenlow!" said Henrietta. "I knew she must be in some great
trouble that morning. But what has become of Mark?"

"His father made good his peculations and hushed the matter all up,
and then they sent him out west to a cattle ranch."

CHAPTER XVIII

ISABELLA TAKES ONE MORE RIDE

Henrietta Marne looked curiously at the envelope bearing the stamp of
Hugh Gordon's business firm. "There is always a letter from Mr. Gordon
just before Mr. Brand gets back," she said to herself, "so I suppose
he'll be here some time today. If he does I'll have to decide about
leaving him. But there'll be such a lot of work to do it won't be fair
for me to say anything about going till we get things straightened out
again."

On that same June morning Penelope Brand was reading a letter in a
similar envelope. She was out of doors, in her wheel-chair, in the
shade of that same tree from which she had fallen, years before, to
such pitiful maiming of her body and her life. Beside her was a little
table holding some books, a pad of paper and a pencil and her
work-basket. For here she spent the greater part of every fine day,
by turns reading, making notes, writing, sewing, and talking with her
mother. The roses that grew along the fence were in bloom and a few
steps in the other direction was the little vegetable garden where her
mother worked when the sun was not too hot, so near that they could
speak to each other now and then.

Penelope was beginning to find a new pleasure in life, the deepest of
all pleasures to the woman-heart, the pleasure of service. For Hugh
Gordon had been sending her books treating of the sociological
questions in which she had long taken an intellectual interest and had
asked her to make digests of them for him, to tell him what she
thought of them and to write him at length upon such of their contents
as seemed to her of particular consequence. She had had a number of
letters from him discussing these things and outlining plans upon
which he wanted her opinion.

All this