How would Margaret bear it now that the hope which had been a sheet anchor to her soul was gone? She had been very brave through it all, even in these last trying days but it had been in the confident belief that no court in the land would decree against her. With that prop gone upon what would she stay her soul? She recalled the girl's passionate outburst in the court-room with apprehension. It was not like her to forget time and place and the proprieties like that. She thought of the doctor's words, "You never can tell how a thing like this will end." _She_ knew that it ended sometimes in death--and sometimes in---- Mrs. Pennybacker did not finish it. She would not acknowledge even to herself the fear that was tugging at her heart. Margaret had been under a fearful mental strain. Would she be able to stand up against it? Would her physical vigor be such as to enable her to--She broke off again in her thoughts. She was thinking in fragments to-day. Suppose the next trial of the case--in whatever form it would come--should go against her too. Had she the strength of will, of character, to recast her life still another time and live it out without her child? She had been amazed at the buoyancy of the girl's nature which had enabled her to rise above her sorrows and thrust them beneath her feet. But then she had Philip! Now---- "Aunt Mary," said Mrs. Van Dorn, turning to her and breaking in upon these somber thoughts somewhat abruptly, "I must say that I was very much surprised at Margaret De Jarnette's conduct in the court-room to-day. Mrs. Somerville was telling me about it. Of course people are different, and I don't expect everybody to have my high standards, but it seems to me that her allusions were decidedly indelicate--not to say coarse. Mrs. Somerville says she was actually violent--_swore_, I should call it. Anyway she said 'hell' or 'damn' or some of those things that nobody ought ever to say but a man. Mrs. Somerville didn't seem to feel so, but I am surprised at Margaret. Such bad form! And before gentlemen too!" Mrs. Pennybacker's needles clicked. She was knitting fast, and without much regard to stitches dropped. Those needles were her safety valves. Her lips just now indicated that steam was at high pressure.... It was positively no use to talk to Maria! "Of course it is hard for her to give up her child," Mrs. Van Dorn continued with the air of one willing to make every reasonable concession--"any woman can understand a mother's feelings--(come here, darling, let mama tie his little wibbons)--but to say 'hell'--" "Maria!" Mrs. Pennybacker gave her yarn a jerk that sent the ball on one of its perennial journeys across the room--"if you will excuse my saying so, it is not very becoming in you to criticise Margaret De Jarnette just at this time. A woman who has never been anything more than _step-mother to a poodle_ is not authority on maternal feelings!"