water."

"How could you 'fall'? And what 'water'?"

"I had gone out to the river--up in Medfield. To--take a walk; and
I ... slipped...."

"Now, Eleanor, look here; if I have a virtue, it's candor, and I'll tell
you why; it saves time. That's what my dear father used to say: 'Lyin'
wastes time.' I know what you tried to do; and it was very wicked."

"But I didn't do it!"

"You tried to. If you and Maurice have quarreled, I'll stand by _you_."

Eleanor covered her face with her hands--and Mrs. Newbolt burst out,
"He's treated you badly! You needn't try to deceive me,--he's been
flirtin' with some woman?" Her pale, prominent eyes snapped with anger.

"Oh, Auntie, don't! He hasn't! Only, I--wanted to make him happier; and
so I--" She broke into furious crying. Despairing crying.

Instantly Mrs. Newbolt was all frightened solicitude. "There! Don't cry!
Have a hot-water bag. They say there's a new kind on the market. I must
get a new pair of rubbers. Your face is awfully bruised. He's puffectly
happy! He worships the ground you walk on! Eleanor, don't cry. How's
your cold? The ashman--"

Eleanor, gasping, said her cold was better, and repeated her
determination of going home.

It was the doctor--dropping in, he said, to make sure Mrs. Curtis was
none the worse for her "accident"--who put a stop to that.

"I slipped and fell," Eleanor told him; she was very hoarse.

He said yes, he understood. "But you got badly chilled, and you had a
cold to start with. So you must lie low for two or three days. When will
Mr. Curtis be back?"

Eleanor said she didn't know; all she knew was she didn't want him sent
for. She was "all right."

But of course he had been sent for! "I don't know that it was really
necessary," Mrs. Newbolt told Mrs. Houghton, who appeared late in the
afternoon; "but I wasn't goin' to take the responsibility--"

"Of course not!" Mrs. Houghton said. "Mr. Weston has telegraphed him,
too, I hope?" Then, before taking her things off, she went upstairs to
Eleanor. "Well!" she said, "I hear you had an accident? Sensible girl,
to stay in bed!" She took Eleanor's hand, and its hot tremor made her
look keenly at the haggard face on the pillow.

"Oh," Eleanor said, with a gasp of relief, "I'm so glad you're here!
There are some things I want attended to. I owe--I mean, somebody paid
my car fare. And I _must_ send it to her! And then I want something
from my desk; but I can't have Bridget get it, and I don'