ings," she went on. "You see, when they all have on white
aprons and veils you can't tell whether they are Judy O'Grady or the
Colonel's lady--so they load their hands with diamonds. As if the
hands wouldn't tell the tale themselves. Why, Emily, if you and Hilda
were hidden, all but your hands, the people would know the Colonel's
lady from Judy O'Grady."

Emily smiled abstractedly, she was counting compresses. She stopped
long enough to ask, "Is Hilda still in town?"

"Yes. I saw her yesterday on the other side of the street. I didn't
speak, but some day when I get a good opportunity I am going to tell
her what I think of her."

But when the opportunity came she did not say all that she had meant to
say!

She went over one morning to her father's house to get some papers
which he had left in his desk. The house had been closed for weeks and
the hall, as she entered it, was cold with a chill that reached the
marrow of her bones--it was dim with the half-gloom of drawn curtains
and closed doors. Even the rose-colored drawing-room as she stood on
the threshold held no radiance--it had the stiff and frozen look of a
soulless body. Yet she remembered how it had throbbed and thrilled on
the night that Derry had come to her. The golden air had washed in
waves over her.

She shivered and went over to the window. She pulled up a curtain and
looked out upon the grayness of the street. The clouds were low, and a
strong wind was blowing. Those who passed, bent to the wind. She was
slightly above the level of the street, and nobody looked up at her.
She might have been a ghost in the ghostly house.

Well, she had to get the papers. She turned to face the gloom, and as
she turned she heard a sound in the room above her.

It was the rather startling sound of muffled steps. She dared not go
into the hall. She felt comparatively safe by the window--.
If--anything came, she could open the window and call.

But she did not call, for it was Hilda who came presently on
rubber-heels and stood in the door.

"I thought I heard some one," she said, calmly.

"How did you get in?" was Jean's abrupt demand.

"I had my key. I have never given it up."

"But this is no longer your home."

"It was never home," said Hilda, darkly. "It was never home. I lived
here with you and your father, but it was never home."

Jean, more than ever afraid of this woman, had a sudden sense of
something tragic in the fact of Hilda'