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"Doesn't she ever mention Stephen Siward?"

"Usually She knows I like hi at him steadily

"I know it Everybody likes him--or did I do, yet"

"I do, too," observed Mrs Mortimer coolly "I was in love with him He was only a boy then"

Plank nodded in silence

"Where is he now--do, you know?" she asked "Everybody says he's gone to the devil"

"He's in the country somewhere," replied Plank cautiously "I stopped in to see him the other day, but nobody seemed to knohen he would return"

Mrs Morti interval of silence she lay there in her chair, changing her position restlessly fro that Plank began to think she had fallen asleep in her chair

He rose She did not stir, and, passing her, he instinctively glanced down Her cheeks, half buried against the back of the chair, were overflushed; under the closed lids the lashes glistened wet in the lah afraid to move; and she sat up with a nervous shake of her shoulders

"What a life!" she said, under her breath; "what a life for a woman to lead!"

"Wh-whose?" he blurted out