Clara gave way to a loud burst of grief. “Oh, Olive Halleck! I didn't suppose you could be so cruel!” Olive rose impatiently. “Then write to him, or go to him and tell him that you're ashamed of yourself, and ask him to take your property back again.” “Never!” cried Clara, who had listened with fascination. “What would he think of me?” “Why need you care? It's purely a matter of business!” “Yes.” “And you needn't mind what he thinks.” “Of course,” admitted Clara, thoughtfully. “He will naturally despise you,” added Olive, “but I suppose he does that, now.” Clara gave her friend as piercing a glance as her soft blue eyes could emit, and, detecting no sign of jesting in Olive's sober face, she answered haughtily, “I don't see what right Mr. Atherton has to despise me!” “Oh, no! He must admire a girl who has behaved to him as you've done.” Clara's hauteur collapsed, and she began to truckle to Olive. “If he were _merely_ a business man, I shouldn't mind it; but knowing him socially, as I do, and as a--friend, and--an acquaintance, that way, I don't see how I can do it.” “I wonder you didn't think of that before you accused him of fraud and peculation, and all those things.” “I _didn't_ accuse him of fraud and peculation!” cried Clara, indignantly. “You said you didn't know what all you'd called him,” said Olive, with her hand on the door. Clara followed her down stairs. “Well, I shall never do it in the world,” she said, with reviving hope in her voice. “Oh, I don't expect you to go to him this morning,” said Olive dryly. “That would be a little _too_ barefaced.” Her friend kissed her. “Olive Halleck, you're the strangest girl that ever was. I do believe you'd joke at the point of death! But I'm _so_ glad you have been perfectly frank with me, and of course it's worth worlds to know that you think I've behaved horridly, and ought to make _some_ reparation.” “I'm glad you value my opinion, Clara. And if you come to me for frankness, you can always have all you want; it's a drug in the market with me.” She meagrely returned Clara's embrace, and left her in a reverie of tactless scheming for the restoration of peace with Mr. Atherton. Marcia came in upon the lawyer before he had thought, after parting with Miss Kingsbury, to tell the clerk in the outer office to deny her; but she was too full of her own trouble to see the reluctance which it tasked all his strength to quell, and she sank into the nearest chair unbidden. At sight of her, Atherton became the prey of one of those fantastic repulsions in which men visit upon women the blame of others' thoughts about them: he censured her for Halleck's wrong; but in another instant he recognized his cruelty, and atoned by relenting a little in his intolerance of her presence. She sat gazing at him with a face of blank misery, to which he could not refuse the charity of a prompting question: “Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Hubbard?”