g that girl?"

"Yes, mother."

"Have you found her?"

"No, mother."

"Rex, have you driven me wholly from your heart?"

"No; that would be impossible. Winifred would not wish it, callous as
you were to her."

"Do not be too hard on me. I am sore wounded. It is a great deal for a
woman to be cast into the outer darkness."

"Nonsense, mother, you are emerging into light. If your friends are so
ready to drop you because you are poor--with the exceeding poverty of
twenty-five hundred a year--of what value were they as friends? When you
know Winifred you will be glad. You will feel as Dante felt when he
emerged from the Inferno."

"So you are determined to marry her?"

"Unquestionably. And mark you, mother, when the clouds pass, and we are
rich again, you will be proud of your daughter-in-law. She will bear all
your skill in dressing. Gad! how the women of your set will envy her
complexion."

Mrs. Carshaw smiled wanly at that. She knew her "set," as Rex termed the
Four Hundred.

"Why is she called Bartlett?" she inquired after a pause, and Rex looked
at her in surprise. "I have a reason," she continued. "Is that her real
name?"

"Now," he cried, "I admit you are showing some of your wonted
cleverness."

"Ah! Then I am right. I have been thinking. Cessation from society
duties is at least restful. Last night, lying awake and wondering where
you were, my thoughts reverted to that girl. I remembered her face. All
at once a long-forgotten chord of memory hummed its note. Twenty years
ago, when you were a little boy, Rex, I met a Mrs. Marchbanks. She was a
sweet singer. Does your Winifred sing?"

Carshaw drew his chair closer to his mother and placed an arm around her
shoulder.

"Yes," he said.

"Rex," she murmured brokenly, hiding her face, "do you forgive me?"

"Mother, I ask you to forgive me if I said harsh things."

There was silence for a while. Then she raised her eyes. They were wet,
but smiling.

"This Mrs. Marchbanks," she went on bravely, "had your Winifred's face.
She was wealthy and altogether charming. Her husband, too, was a
gentleman. She was a ward of the elder Meiklejohn, the present Senator's
father. My recollection of events is vague, but there was some scandal
in Burlington."

"I know all, or nearly all, about it. That is why I was called to
Vermont. Mother, in future, you will work with me, not against me?"

"I will--indeed I will," she sobbed.

"Then you must not drop your ca