of her errand
vanishing; "you were looking very tired at breakfast."

"I did not sleep last night," she replied, rising wearily from the bed,
and pressing her hands against her temples as she sat down. "I am so
perplexed that I don't know which way to turn. I wonder if you could
advise me, Alice?"

"If only I could be of help to you!" the girl exclaimed, drawing another
chair close to Eleanor's, and taking both her hands in her own.

Eleanor made no reply for several moments. "I don't know what to do,"
she said simply at last. "I want to have my life an open book to your
father, yet in this one instance I can't see my way clear."

"Why, Eleanor!" cried the girl, surprised, "how can that be possible?"

"I don't wonder you ask; that is the question I have set myself to
answer. I saw Ralph Buckner yesterday as I was driving up Fifth Avenue,
and the sight of him filled me with apprehension."

"Your first husband--in New York?" Alice asked, surprised.

"Yes--what can he be doing here?"

"You don't know that it has anything to do with you, do you?"

"No; but I am so apprehensive that I imagine everything."

"But the past is dead, Eleanor dear. To have it recalled is of course
painful, but why should you dread it?"

Mrs. Gorham did not answer at once, and the girl was amazed to witness
the conflict of emotion which her face expressed. At last Eleanor raised
her eyes.

"The past is not wholly dead," she said, in a low voice. "That is the
unfortunate part. There is one event which happened back there in
Colorado, right after Carina was killed, which has never--can never be
explained. It is the only detail of that awful tragedy which I have not
told your father, and I could not even tell you."

"Can't you tell me enough so I can really help you, Eleanor?"

"No, not even as much as that. The appearances were all against me. I
know that nothing occurred of which I need feel ashamed, but the
circumstantial evidence is so strong that it would be beyond human
possibility to expect any one, even one as generous as your father, to
accept my unsupported statement."

"Has this to do with your first husband?"

"I fear that if he has come in possession of the facts he may intend to
use them against me."

"Then the only thing for you to do is to see father at once, and to tell
him everything yourself before that horrid man has the opportunity.
There is nothing, Eleanor, which you could tell him which he would not
accept