eady harassed, already perplexed, already bruised
and wearied by her first skirmishes with life; not yet fully
understanding what threatened, what lay before--alas! what lay behind
her--even to the fifth generation.

They were to motor to Lenox after luncheon. Before that--and leaving
Scott absorbed in his grubbing, and Kathleen absorbed in watching
him--Geraldine wandered back into the library and took down a book--a
book which had both beguiled and horrified the solitude of her
self-imprisonment. It was called "Simpson on Heredity."

There were some very hideous illustrated pages in that book; she turned
to them with a fearful fascination which had never left her since she
first read them. They dealt with the transmission of certain tendencies
through successive generations.

That the volume was an old one and amusingly out of date she did not
realise, as her brown eyes widened over terrifying paragraphs and the
soft tendrils of her glossy hair almost bristled.

She had asked Kathleen about it, and Kathleen had asked Dr. Bailey, who
became very irritated and told Geraldine that anybody except a physician
who ever read medical works was a fool. Desperation gave her courage to
ask him one more question; his well-meant reply silenced her. But she
had the book under her pillow. It is better to answer such questions
when the young ask them.

And over it all she pondered and pored, and used a dictionary and
shuddered, frightening herself into a morbid condition until,
desperately scared, she even thought of going to Duane about it; but
could not find the hardihood to do it or the vocabulary necessary.

Now Duane was gone; and the book lay there between her knees, all its
technical vagueness menacing her with unknown terrors; and she felt that
she could endure it alone no longer.

She wrote him:

"You have not been gone an hour, and already I need you. I wish to
ask you about something that is troubling me; I've asked Kathleen
and she doesn't know; and Dr. Bailey was horrid to me, and I tried
to find out from Scott whether he knew, but he wasn't much
interested. So, Duane, who else is there for me to ask except you?
And I don't exactly know whether I may speak about such matters to
you, but I'm rather frightened, and densely ignorant.

"It is this, dear; in a medical book which I read, it says that
hereditary taints are transmissible; that sometimes they may skip
the second