would she
ever be able to give up the life which in many ways suited her so well?
If she married Mark--dear, kind, generous-hearted Mark--various
friendships which, even if they did not mean so much to her as they
appeared to do, yet meant a good deal in her present lonely life, would
certainly have to be given up. To take but one instance. It had almost
been an instinct with her to keep Lionel Varick and Mark Gifford apart.
In the old days she had been disagreeably aware of how absolutely
Gifford had always disapproved of Varick, and of Varick's various ways
of trying, often successfully, to raise the wind. Of course, everything
was now different with regard to this particular friend. Varick had
become--by what anyone not a hypocrite must admit had been a fortunate
circumstance--a respectable member of society; but, even so, she knew,
deep in her heart, that he and the man whose letter she held in her hand
would never like one another.

And yet she was tired--so tired!--of the sort of life she led, year in
and year out. Her nerves were no longer what they had once been. For
instance, the strange series of happenings that had just taken place
here, at Wyndfell Hall, had thoroughly upset her; and as for the
horrible thing that had occurred yesterday, she hadn't been able to
sleep all night for thinking of it. Nothing that had ever happened in
her now long life had had quite the effect on Blanche Farrow that
Bubbles' accident had had. She had realized, suddenly, how fond she was
of the girl--how strong in all of us is the call of the blood! As she
had stood watching Dr. Panton's untiring efforts to restore the
circulation of the apparently drowned girl there had gone up from
Blanche's heart a wild, instinctive prayer to the God in whom she did
not believe, to spare the child.

Perhaps just because she had not broken down before, she felt the more
now all that had happened in the way of the strange, the sinister, and
the untoward during the last fortnight. And all at once, after reading
yet again right through the quiet, measured letter of her old friend
and constant lover, Blanche Farrow suddenly burst into a passion of
tears.

And then it struck her as funny, as even absurd, that she should cry
like this! She hadn't cried for years and years--in fact, she could
hardly remember the day when she had last cried.

She jumped out of bed and put on her dressing-gown, for it was very
cold, and then she went and gazed at h