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 wise, old mind as her dark son, even in the moments when he was most disarming. Her own people Ellen might battle and overthrow, but these were different. She could not even fathom the woman's friendliness.

"I am not a cheap adventuress," she repeated. "Don't believe that."

"My dear girl, I am not such a fool. . . . I was not born yesterday. . . . I have dealt with women of that sort."

"You see," said Ellen, folding and refolding her handkerchief like a little girl, "I am quite alone. . . . I looked on him as a friend . . . as I might look on my own brother. . . . I never thought of such a thing."

At this Mrs. Callendar made a clucking noise and bowed her head for a time in thought. At last she said, "Ah, but that is where the trouble lay! That is where you were wrong! . . . Such a thing is not possible with him. . . . There is acquaintance and the next step is the other thing. He is not, after all, like your American men."

Ellen looked up now and ceased to plait the handkerchief. "I can see that . . ." she said. "I've learned a great deal. I've thought of nothing else for weeks. . . . It frightens me because I can't stop thinking of it when I want to . . . not even at night. There's never been anything like it before." She looked directly at Mrs. Callendar. "Could I talk to you . . . ? Could I tell you the truth?"

"My dear, it is the only way we shall arrive anywhere."

"I've got to tell some one . . . I've thought and thought about the whole thing. I don't know what it is he wants of me. He has never said anything. . . . We have never even mentioned it." She smiled faintly. "Perhaps I am a fool and silly. We've never mentioned it in any way. . . ."

Mrs. Callendar interrupted her. "Ah, but that's it. That's what makes it serious. . . ."

"Perhaps I'm talking of something that doesn't exist."

"Oh, it exists all right." Thérèse knocked the ash from her