been informed of this--double bereavement?"

"Not yet," I said. "She has been very ill; perhaps to-night she can be
told."

"It is very sad; very sad," he said. "I have a telegram for her, Mrs.
Innes. Shall I send it out?"

"Better open it and read it to me," I suggested. "If it is important,
that will save time."

There was a pause while Mr. Harton opened the telegram. Then he read
it slowly, judicially.

"'Watch for Nina Carrington. Home Monday. Signed F. L. W.'"

"Hum!" I said. "'Watch for Nina Carrington. Home Monday.' Very well,
Mr. Harton, I will tell her, but she is not in condition to watch for
any one."

"Well, Miss Innes, if you decide to--er--relinquish the lease, let me
know," the lawyer said.

"I shall not relinquish it," I replied, and I imagined his irritation
from the way he hung up the receiver.

I wrote the telegram down word for word, afraid to trust my memory, and
decided to ask Doctor Stewart how soon Louise might be told the truth.
The closing of the Traders' Bank I considered unnecessary for her to
know, but the death of her stepfather and stepbrother must be broken to
her soon, or she might hear it in some unexpected and shocking manner.

Doctor Stewart came about four o'clock, bringing his leather satchel
into the house with a great deal of care, and opening it at the foot of
the stairs to show me a dozen big yellow eggs nesting among the bottles.

"Real eggs," he said proudly. "None of your anemic store eggs, but the
real thing--some of them still warm. Feel them! Egg-nog for Miss
Louise."

He was beaming with satisfaction, and before he left, he insisted on
going back to the pantry and making an egg-nog with his own hands.
Somehow, all the time he was doing it, I had a vision of Doctor
Willoughby, my nerve specialist in the city, trying to make an egg-nog.
I wondered if he ever prescribed anything so plebeian--and so
delicious. And while Doctor Stewart whisked the eggs he talked.

"I said to Mrs. Stewart," he confided, a little red in the face from
the exertion, "after I went home the other day, that you would think me
an old gossip, for saying what I did about Walker and Miss Louise."

"Nothing of the sort," I protested.

"The fact is," he went on, evidently justifying him self, "I got that
piece of information just as we get a lot of things, through the
kitchen end of the house. Young Walker's chauffeur--Walker's more
fashionable than I am, and he goes aroun