omes back----"

Miss Chatterton's voice sank. "She never will come back."

"Never? How about the Colonel?"

Miss Chatterton smiled. "That's the beauty of it. It's the neatest,
sweetest, completest little plot that ever was invented, and it's
simplicity itself, like its inventor--that's me. I suppose you know
all about Mrs. Fazakerly?"

"Well, not all. Who _could_ know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?"

"You know enough, I daresay. By taking her away--I mean Frida--we
force the Colonel's hand."

"You might explain."

"I never saw a man who wanted so many things explained. Don't you
see that, as long as Frida stays at home, petting and pampering him
and doing all his work for him, he'll never take the trouble to
marry; but as soon as she goes away, and stays away----"

"I see, I see; he marries. You force his hand--and heart."

"Exactly. And, if he marries, Frida stays away altogether. She's
free."

"Yes; she's free. If she goes; but she'll never go."

"Won't she? She's going next Monday. It's all arranged. I've told
her that she's in her father's way, that he wants to marry, and
keeps single for her sake. And she believes it."

He walked up and down with his hands in his pockets, a prey to
bewildering emotions.

"It's ingenious and delightful, your plot," said he. "But I can't
say that I grasp all the _minutiae_, the practical details. For
instance (it's a brutal question, but), who's going to provide
the--the funds for this expedition to Scandinavia--or was it
Abyssinia?"

"Funds? Oh, that's all right. She's got any amount of her own,
though you wouldn't know it."

"I didn't know it." He champed his upper lip. He could not in the
least account for the feeling, but he was bitterly, basely
disappointed at this last revelation. Miss Tancred was independent.
Up till now he could not bring himself to believe in her flight; he
did not want to believe in it; it would have been a relief to him to
know that the strange bird's wings were clipped.

"It was her mother's; what the poor lady traveled on, I suppose.
Frida might have been enjoying it all the time, only, you see, there
was the Colonel. That's why she wants him to marry Mrs. Fazakerly,
though she'd rather die than own it."

"Why shouldn't she own it?"

"Because she can't trust her motives, trust herself. I never saw a
woman fight so shy of herself."

"Then that's what she was thinking of when she said she was afraid
of her own feelings."

"Oh! So sh