. I had never seen your
brother until we met in Maine; he was of the greatest service to me; I
was in sorry plight when he picked me up."

He was prepared to tell the story of the meeting, everything indeed that
had occurred. He had imagined that she would be immensely curious as to
all the phases and incidents of his relationship with her brother.

"Just now I shall be happier not to know," she said, and added with a
smile: "Later, when my heart is lighter than it is today you may tell
me."

She was magnificent, a thoroughbred, this woman, who walked beside him
with the air of a queen who might lose a throne but never the mastery of
her own soul. She was far more at ease than he, walking with her hands
thrust carelessly into the pockets of her coat, halting now and then to
gaze across the water.

"My brother is Philip Van Doren, and there were just the two of us. An
unusual sympathy bound us together from childhood, and there was never a
closer tie between brother and sister. I married his most intimate
friend. My husband betrayed him; it was the breach of a trust in which
they were jointly liable. It was not merely a theft, it was a gross,
dastardly thing, without a single mitigating circumstance. My husband
killed himself."

She spoke without a quaver of the beautiful voice, meeting his gaze as
she uttered the last sentence as though anxious to spare herself nothing
in her desire to convince him of her perfect composure. One might have
thought her an amiable woman attempting to entertain a dull companion by
summarizing a tale she had read that had not interested her
particularly.

"It broke Philip's heart; it broke his spirit! It destroyed his generous
faith in all men. He was a brilliant student in college and promised to
go far in the law; but he felt keenly the dishonor. The financial part
of it he of course took care of; that was the least of it. There was
always a strain of mysticism in him; and he had gone deeply into
astrology and things like that; and when the dark hour came he pretended
to find consolation in them. He was born under an evil star, he said,
and would not be free of its spell until he had passed through a period
of servitude. It sounds like insanity, but it was only a grim ironic
distortion of his reason. He said that if honor was so poor a thing he
would seek a world that knew no honor. I dread to think how he has spent
these years!"

"I have found him the kindest, the most loyal, the