-out of this house for ever!"

She became quiet.

"Let the girl be pretty," she repeated; "let the girl be pretty
while she's young. . . . Oh! how can we go on LIVING, Willie? He
doesn't show it, but he's like a stricken beast. He's wounded to
the heart. She was always his favorite. He never seemed to care
for Puss like he did for her. And she's wounded him--"

"Where has she gone?" I reverted at last to that.

"We don't know. She leaves her own blood, she trusts herself-- Oh,
Willie, it'll kill me! I wish she and me together were lying in
our graves."

"But"--I moistened my lips and spoke slowly--"she may have gone
to marry."

"If that was so! I've prayed to God it might be so, Willie. I've
prayed that he'd take pity on her--him, I mean, she's with."

I jerked out: "Who's that?"

"In her letter, she said he was a gentleman. She did say he was
a gentleman."

"In her letter. Has she written? Can I see her letter?"

"Her father took it."

"But if she writes-- When did she write?"

"It came this morning."

"But where did it come from? You can tell--"

"She didn't say. She said she was happy. She said love took one
like a storm--"

"Curse that! Where is her letter? Let me see it. And as for this
gentleman--"

She stared at me.

"You know who it is."

"Willie!" she protested.

"You know who it is, whether she said or not?" Her eyes made a mute
unconfident denial.

"Young Verrall?"

She made no answer. "All I could do for you, Willie," she began
presently.

"Was it young Verrall?" I insisted.

For a second, perhaps, we faced one another in stark understanding.
. . . Then she plumped back to the chest of drawers, and her wet
pocket-handkerchief, and I knew she sought refuge from my relentless
eyes.

My pity for her vanished. She knew it was her mistress's son as
well as I! And for some time she had known, she had felt.

I hovered over her for a moment, sick with amazed disgust. I suddenly
bethought me of old Stuart, out in the greenhouse, and turned and
went downstairs. As I did so, I looked up to see Mrs. Stuart moving
droopingly and lamely back into her own room.

Section 6

Old Stuart was pitiful.

I found him still inert in the greenhouse where I had first seen
him. He did not move as I drew near him; he glanced at me, and then
stared hard again at the flowerpots before him.

"Eh, Willie," he said, "this is a black day for all of us."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.