joy of victory once again seemed to slip from the clutch of
Cally Heth. What house of cards was this she had pulled down upon
herself?...

"Really, you must appreciate," the man was saying, in a light, dry
voice, "I shouldn't feel at liberty to betray a secret of that sort,
even if I knew. I'm sorry, but--"

But the girl's sickening sensations of falling through space broke out
in faltering speech:

"_Oh!_... Do you _mean_ ..." She halted, to steady herself, and took a
fresh start, no better than the first: "Do you mean--that--"

"I mean only, Miss Heth, that I haven't the slightest idea what this is
all about. I thought," he said, in a voice of increasing hardness, "that
we were talking of the Works. If, at another time, you can give me a few
minutes--"

"Was it YOU?" said Carlisle, breaking through his defenses ... "Do you
mean--it was YOU, all along?..."

"I mean nothing of any sort. Does it occur to you that these questions
are quite unfair?--that they put me in a ..."

She demanded in a small voice: "_Did you buy this house for the
Settlement?_"

Shot down with the pointblank question, the tall young man, whose coat
was so extremely polished at the elbows, died game, saying with sudden
gentleness:

"No, it was my Uncle Armistead."

And then there was no sound but the steady beat of the rain upon
sidewalk and roofs ...

Upstairs, just a floor and a ceiling away, Mrs. Heth, craning her neck
for the last time, perceived that Cally had decided not to come to the
meeting; also that it was just as well, viewing the inclement weather.
Downstairs, almost directly beneath her, Cally stood front to front with
the family enemy, her face quite white.

"Of course you understand," the enemy was saying, hurriedly and yet
firmly too, "he gave me the money expecting it to be used for the public
good. I've considered that I merely had it in trust, as a fund for--for
these purposes, as I've explained. And this--well, you may easily
imagine that it was the most perfect form of self-indulgence.... I've
gotten so fond of this old place ... But I can't imagine how we came to
be talking of it, and I beg that you'll forget the whole matter. I--my
uncle would have been very much annoyed to--to have it known or talked
about...."

Not in that singular experience in the Cooney parlor, not even in the
memorable New Year's moment in her own library, had Carlisle been swept
with such a desire to dissociate herself from her own p