l sickness, the tremendous
driving influence which is often part of a passionately active and not
very wise personality. That certitude and insistence of Mrs.
Harrington's could hammer you finally into believing or doing almost
anything. Phyllis wondered how much his mother's heartbroken adoration
and pity might have had to do with making her son as hopeless-minded as
he was.

Naturally, the mother-in-law-elect she had acquired in such a strange
way became very fond of Phyllis. But indeed there was something very gay
and sweet and honest-minded about the girl, a something which gave
people the feeling that they were very wise in liking her. Some people
you are fond of against your will. When people cared for Phyllis it was
with a quite irrational feeling that they were doing a sensible thing.
They never gave any of the credit to her very real, though almost
invisible, charm.

She never saw Allan Harrington on any of the Sunday visits. She was sure
the servants thought she did, for she knew that every one in the great,
dark old house knew her as the young lady who was to marry Mr. Allan.
She believed that she was supposed to be an old family friend, perhaps a
distant relative. She did not want to see Allan. But she did want to be
as good to his little, tensely-loving mother as she could, and reassure
her about Allan's future care. And she succeeded.

It was on a Friday about two that the summons came. Phyllis had thought
she expected it, but when the call came to her over the library
telephone she found herself as badly frightened as she had been the
first time she went to the Harrington house. She shivered as she laid
down the dater she was using, and called the other librarian to take her
desk. Fortunately, between one and four the morning and evening shifts
overlapped, and there was some one to take her place.

"Mrs. Harrington cannot last out the night," came Mr. De Guenther's
clear, precise voice over the telephone, without preface. "I have
arranged with Mr. Johnston. You can go at once. You had better pack a
suit-case, for you possibly may not be able to get back to your
boarding-place."

So it was to happen now! Phyllis felt, with her substitute in her place,
her own wraps on, and her feet taking her swiftly towards her goal, as
if she were offering herself to be made a nun, or have a hand or foot
cut off, or paying herself away in some awful, irrevocable fashion. She
packed, mechanically, all the pretty thi