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"She couldn't have gone back--it was impossible!" he exclaimed

"Ah, my dear, I always knew you were on her side; and that's why I sent for you today, and why I said to your pretty wife, when she proposed to co to see Newland, and I don't want anybody to share our transports' For you see,chins permitted, and looked hiht yet The family don't want her here, and they'll say it's because I've been ill, because I'm a weak old woht theot to do it for me"

"I?" he stammered

"You Why not?" she jerked back at him, her round eyes suddenly as sharp as pen-knives Her hand fluttered from its chair-arm and lit on his with a clutch of little pale nails like bird-claws "Why not?" she searchingly repeated

Archer, under the exposure of her gaze, had recovered his self-possession

"Oh, I don't count--I'nificant"

"Well, you're Letterblair's partner, ain't you? You've got to get at theot a reason," she insisted

"Oh, ainst them all without my help; but you shall have it if you need it," he reassured her

"Then we're safe!" she sighed; and s she added, as she settled her head a the cushions: "I always knew you'd back us up, because they never quote you when they talk about its being her duty to go ho perspicacity, and longed to ask: "And May--do they quote her?" But he judged it safer to turn the question

"And Madame Olenska? When am I to see her?" he said

The old lady chuckled, cruh the pantomime of archness "Not today One at a tione out"

He flushed with disappointone in ina Beaufort"

She paused for this announcement to produce its effect "That's what she's reduced ot here she put on her best bonnet, and told ina Beaufort 'I don't know her; who is she?' says I 'She's your grand-niece, and a most unhappy woman,' she says 'She's the wife of a scoundrel,' I answered 'Well,' she says, 'and so ao back to hio; and finally one day she said it was raining too hard to go out on foot, and she wanted e 'What for?' I asked her; and she said: 'To go and see cousin Regina'--COUSIN! Now,a drop; but I understood her, and I let her have the carriage After all, Regina's a brave woe above everything"