"Do you know whom he is in love with now?" she said presently.

"Yes; with you."

"No--not with me; with you." She put her hand on Lois's cheek caressingly, and gazed into her eyes.

The girl's eyes sank into her lap. Her face, which had been growing white and pink by turns, suddenly flamed.

"Mrs. Lancaster, I believe I--" she began in low tones. She raised her eyes, and they met for a moment Mrs. Lancaster's. Something in their depths, some look of sympathy, of almost maternal kindness, struck her, pa.s.sed through to her long-stilled heart. With a little cry she threw herself into the other's arms and buried her burning face in her lap.

The expression on the face of the young widow changed. She glanced down for a moment at the little head in her lap, then bending down, she buried her face in the brown tresses, and drew her form close to her heart.

In a moment the young girl was pouring out her soul to her as if she had been her daughter.

The expression in Alice Lancaster's eyes was softer than it had been for a long time, for it was the light of self-sacrifice that shone in them.

"You have your happiness in your hands," she said tenderly.

Lois looked up with dissent in her eyes.

Mrs. Lancaster shook her head.

"No. He will never be in love with me again."

The girl gave a quick intaking of her breath, her hand clutching at her throat.

"Oh, Mrs. Lancaster!" She was thinking aloud rather than speaking. "I thought that you cared for him."

Alice Lancaster shook her head. She tried to meet frankly the other's eyes, but as they gazed deep into hers with an inquiry not to be put aside, hers failed and fell.

"No," she said, but it was with a gasp.

Lois's eyes opened wide, and her face changed.

"Oh!" she murmured, as the sense of what she had done swept over her.

She rose to her feet and, bending down, kissed Mrs. Lancaster tenderly.

One might have thought she was the elder of the two.

Lois returned home in deep thought. She had surprised Mrs. Lancaster's secret, and the end was plain. She allowed herself no delusions. The dream that for a moment had shed its radiance on her was broken. Keith was in love with Mrs. Lancaster, and Alice loved him. She prayed that they might be happy--especially Keith. She was angry with herself that she had allowed herself to become so interested in him. She would forget him. This was easier said than done. But she could at least avoid seeing him. And having made her decision, she held to it firmly. She avoided him in every way possible.

The strain, however, had been too much for Lois, and her strength began to go. The doctor advised Mrs. Wentworth to send her home. "She is breaking down, and you will have her ill on your hands," he said. Lois, too, was pining to get away. She felt that she could not stand the city another week. And so, one day, she disappeared from town.

When Wickersham met Mrs. Lancaster after her talk with Lois, he was conscious of the change in her. The old easy, indulgent att.i.tude was gone; and in her eye, instead of the lazy, half-amused smile, was something very like scorn. Something had happened, he knew.

His thoughts flew to Keith, Norman, Rimmon, also to several ladies of his acquaintance. What had they told her? Could it be the fact that he had lost nearly everything--that he had spent Mrs. Wentworth's money?

That he had written anonymous letters? Whatever it was, he would brave it out. He had been in some hard places lately, and had won out by his nerve. He a.s.sumed an injured and a virtuous air, and no man could do it better.

"What has happened? You are so strange to me. Has some one been prejudicing you against me? Some one has slandered me," he said, with an air of virtue.

"No. No one." Mrs. Lancaster turned her rings with a little embarra.s.sment. She was trying to muster the courage to speak plainly to him. He gave it to her.

"Oh, yes; some one has. I think I have a right to demand who it is. Is it that man Keith?"

"No." She glanced at him with a swift flash in her eye. "Mr. Keith has not mentioned your name to me since I came home."

Her tone fired him with jealousy.

"Well, who was it, then? He is not above it. He hates me enough to say anything. He has never got over our buying his old place, and has never lost an opportunity to malign me since."

She looked him in the face, for the first time, quite steadily.

"Let me tell you, Mr. Keith has never said a word against you to me--and that is much more than I can say for you; so you need not be maligning him now."

A faint flush stole into Wickersham's face.

"You appear to be championing his cause very warmly."

"Because he is a friend of mine and an honorable gentleman."

He gave a hard, bitter laugh.

"Women are innocent!"

"It is more than men are" she said, fired, as women always are, by a fleer at the s.e.x.

"Who has been slandering me?" he demanded, angered suddenly by her retort. "I have stood in a relation to you which gives me a right to demand the name."

"What relation to me?--Where is your wife?"

His face whitened, and he drew in his breath as if struck a blow,--a long breath,--but in a second he had recovered himself, and he burst into a laugh.

"So you have heard that old story--and believe it?" he said, with his eyes looking straight into hers. As she made no answer, he went on.

"Now, as you have heard it, I will explain the whole thing to you. I have always wanted to do it; but--but--I hardly knew whether it were better to do it or leave it alone. I thought if you had heard it you would mention it to me--"

"I have done so now," she said coldly.

"I thought our relation--or, as you object to that word, our friendship--ent.i.tled me to that much from you."

"I never heard it till--till just now," she defended, rather shaken by his tone and air of candor.

"When?

"Oh--very recently."

"Won't you tell me who told you?"

"No--o. Go on."

"Well, that woman--that poor girl--her name was--her name is--Phrony Tripper--or Trimmer. I think that was her name--she called herself Euphronia Tripper." He was trying with puckered brow to recall exactly.

"I suppose that is the woman you are referring to?" he said suddenly.