ning operatically the while. It went so far with her now, for all
this tension, as to make a comment waver about her innermost thought,
concerning the strange susceptibility of that soprano to conviction on
insufficient evidence. Then she felt a fear that her own power of
serious effort might be waning, and she concentrated again on her
problem. But no solution presented itself better than the stagey one. Is
the stage right, after all?

"The sister married and went abroad. Her husband was a bad man, whom she
had married against the consent of her family." Gwen looked to see if
these words had had any effect. But nothing came of them. She
continued:--"Poor girl! her head was turned, I suppose."

"My dear--'twas the like case with me! 'Tis not for me, at least, to sit
in judgment."

"No, dear Mrs. Picture, nor any of us. But if she had been as bad as the
worst, she could hardly have deserved what came about. I told you she
had married a bad man, and I am going to tell you how bad he was." It
was as well that Gwen should rouse her hearer's attention by a sure and
effective expedient, for it was flagging slightly. Dave's other Granny's
sister's misadventures seemed to have so little to do with the recent
mystery of the mill-model. But a genuine bad man enthrals us all.

"What did he do?" said his unconscious widow.

"He forged a letter to his own wife, saying that her sister was dead,
and she believed it."

"But did her sister never write, to say she was alive?"

"Old Mrs. Marrable? No--because she received a letter at the same time
saying that _her_ sister.... You see which I mean?..."

"Oh yes--the bad man's wife, who was abroad."

"... Was also dead. Do you think you see how it was? He told each sister
the other was dead."

"Oh, I see _that_! But did they both believe it?"

"Both believed it."

"Then did Mrs. Marrable's sister die without knowing?"

Gwen had it on her lips to say:--"She is not dead," before she had had
time to foresee the consequences. She had almost said it when an
apprehension struck across her speech and cut it short. How could she
account to Mrs. Prichard for this knowledge of Mrs. Marrable's sister
without narrowing the issue to the simple question:--"Who and where is
she?" And if those grave old eyes, at rest now that the topic had become
so impersonal to them, were fixed upon her waiting for the answer, how
could she find it in her heart to make the only answer possible, futile
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