d a word of assent, and followed her into the
shining steel cage of the lift.

In her little drawing-room, among the shaded lamps and bowls of spring
flowers, she pushed a chair forward, settled herself in her usual corner
of the sofa, and said with a directness that seemed an echo of his own
tone: "I asked you to come up because I want to talk to you about Mr.
Langhope."

Amherst looked at her in surprise. Though his father-in-law's health had
been more or less unsatisfactory for the last year, all their concern,
of late, had been for Cicely.

"You think him less well?" he enquired.

She waited to draw off and smooth her gloves, with one of the
deliberate gestures that served to shade and supplement her speech.

"I think him extremely unhappy."

Amherst moved uneasily in his seat. He did not know where she meant the
talk to lead them, but he guessed that it would be over painful places,
and he saw no reason why he should be forced to follow her.

"You mean that he's still anxious about Cicely?"

"Partly that--yes." She paused. "The child will get well, no doubt; but
she is very lonely. She needs youth, heat, light. Mr. Langhope can't
give her those, or even a semblance of them; and it's an art I've lost
the secret of," she added with her shadowy smile.

Amherst's brows darkened. "I realize all she has lost----"

Mrs. Ansell glanced up at him quickly. "She is twice motherless," she
said.

The blood rose to his neck and temples, and he tightened his hand on the
arm of his chair. But it was a part of Mrs. Ansell's expertness to know
when such danger signals must be heeded and when they might be ignored,
and she went on quietly: "It's the question of the future that is
troubling Mr. Langhope. After such an illness, the next months of
Cicely's life should be all happiness. And money won't buy the kind she
needs: one can't pick out the right companion for such a child as one
can match a ribbon. What she wants is spontaneous affection, not the
most superlative manufactured article. She wants the sort of love that
Justine gave her."

It was the first time in months that Amherst had heard his wife's name
spoken outside of his own house. No one but his mother mentioned Justine
to him now; and of late even his mother had dropped her enquiries and
allusions, prudently acquiescing in the habit of silence which his own
silence had created about him. To hear the name again--the two little
syllables which had been the k