ive her. Madame smiled with
pure delight at the vision that greeted her, but the young man forgot
his manners and stared--stared like the veriest schoolboy at the tall,
stately figure, clad in shimmering pale green satin that rippled about
her feet as she walked, brought out a bit of colour in her cheeks and
lips, deepened the brown of her eyes, and, like the stalk and leaves of
a tiger-lily, faded into utter insignificance before the burnished
masses of her red-gold hair.

VIII

"Whom God Hath Joined"

[Sidenote: A Fortunate Woman]

Breakfast had been cleared away and Alden, with evident regret, had gone
to school. Madame gave her orders for the day, attended to a bit of
dusting which she would trust no one else to do, gathered up the weekly
mending and came into the living-room, where the guest sat, idly, robed
in a gorgeous negligee of sea-green crepe which was fully as becoming as
her dinner-gown had been the night before.

Madame had observed that Mrs. Lee was one of the rarely fortunate women
who look as well in the morning as in the evening. Last night, in the
glow of the pink-shaded candles, she had been beautiful, and this
morning she was no less lovely, though she sat in direct sunlight that
made a halo of her hair.

The thick, creamy skin, a direct legacy from Louise Lane, needed neither
powder nor rouge, and the scarlet lips asked for no touch of carmine.
But the big brown eyes were wistful beyond words, the dark hollows
beneath spoke of sleepless nights, and the corners of the sweet mouth
drooped continually, in spite of valiant efforts to smile.

[Sidenote: Why She Came]

"I think I should have known you anywhere," Madame began. "You look so
much like your mother."

"Thank you. It was dear of you to put her picture on my dressing-table.
It seemed like a welcome from her."

Madame asked a few questions about her old schoolmate, receiving
monosyllabic answers, then waited. The silence was not awkward, but of
that intimate sort which, with women, precedes confidences.

"I suppose you wonder why I came," the younger woman said, after a long
pause.

"No," Madame replied, gently, "for you told me in your note that you
were troubled and thought I could help you."

"I don't know why I should have thought of you especially, though I have
never forgotten what mother told me about coming to you, if I were in
trouble, but two or three days ago, it came to me all at once that I was
wandering i