most cried aloud in her desolation. Of what profit was love
to her? Was she always to go on being alone with the love that consumed
her?

The hot, dry summer wore away. She steadfastly refused to go to the cool
seashore, she declined the countless invitations that came to her, and she
went but seldom into the city. Her mother was at Newport. They had had one
brief, significant encounter just before the elder woman went off to the
seashore. No doubt her mother considered herself entitled to a fair share
of "the spoils," but she would make no further advances. She had failed
earlier in the game; she would not humble herself again. And so, one hot
day in August, just before going to the country, Anne went up to her old
home, determined to have it out with her mother.

"Why are you staying in town through all of this heat, mother dear?" she
asked. Her mother was looking tired and listless. She was showing her age,
and that was the one thing that Anne could not look upon with complacency.

"I can't afford to go junketing about this year," said her mother, simply.
"This awful war has upset--"

"The war hasn't had time to upset anything over here, mother. It's only
been going on a couple of weeks. You ought to go away, dearest, for a good
long snooze in the country. You'll be as young as a debutante by the time
the season sets in."

Mrs. Tresslyn smiled aridly. "Am I beginning to show my age so much as all
this, Anne?" she lamented. "I'm just a little over fifty. That isn't old
in these days, my dear."

"You look worried, not old," said her daughter, sympathetically. "Is it
money?"

"It's always money," admitted Mrs. Tresslyn. "I may as well make up my
mind to retrench, to live a little more simply. You would think that I
should be really quite well-to-do nowadays, having successfully gotten rid
of my principal items of expense. But I will be quite frank with you,
Anne. I am still trying to pay off obligations incurred before I lost my
excellent son and daughter. You were luxuries, both of you, my dear."

Anne was shocked. "Do you mean to say that you are still paying off--still
paying up for _us_? Good heavens, mamma! Why, we couldn't have got you
into debt to that--"

"Don't jump to conclusions, my dear," her mother interrupted. "The debts
were not all due to you and George. I had a few of my own. What I mean to
say is that, combining all of them, they form quite a handsome amount."

"Tell me," said Anne determine