in her clear cheek. She saw
the situation, so pathetic and so ignominious! SHE could not understand
a woman falling in love with, and then breaking her heart for, a man
who had never cared for her. But then Deb's face was not heavy and
bricky, with prominent cheek-bones, and a forehead four inches high.

"My precious," she crooned, as tenderly as if she understood it all,
and as if her immense pity was not mixed with contempt--"don't, don't!
It doesn't matter about me, but don't let the others think--It would be
too undignified, darling--a casual acquaintance--though a dear, good
boy as ever lived--"

"There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all--"

"No, no, Mary--"

"You don't know, Debbie--oh, nobody knows!" And wrapping her head in
her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair.

Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and
eau de Cologne into a wash-basin. She returned with a fragrant sponge,
with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister's face.

"Come now," said she briskly, "you must have a little pride, dear. You
mustn't give way like this--for a man who did not--and you know he did
not--"

Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to
the cruel light.

"He did!" she affirmed. "You have no business to sneer and say he
didn't--he DID!"

It was not for nothing that the heart-hungry girl had brooded for
months over a few acts and words, magnifying them through the
spectacles that Nature and her needs had provided. Deb put her pitying
arms round her sister's shoulders.

"But, my dear, I know--we all know--"

"How could you know when you were not at home? Nobody knows--nobody but
him and me." Feeling Deb's continued scepticism in the silence of her
caresses, Mary burst out recklessly: "Would he have KISSED me if he had
not?"

Deb's arm was withdrawn. She twisted half round to look in Mary's face.
Mary covered it with her pretty hands, weeping bitterly.

"Is that--did he do that?" asked Deb, in a low tone.

"That night--that last night--oh, I ought not to have spoken of
it!--when we were at our little grave. It was that precious child that
drew us together. You think he had gone away and forgotten, but I know
he had not; he would have come back--he promised to. He gave me his
dear photograph. I have not shown it to anybody, but here it is--"

And still sobbing, and with tears running down her cheeks, she reached
to a drawer