Nothing was said at first of the cause for Aurora's air of repressed excitement, as she knit on a pink and white baby-jacket, or the cloudy annoyance puckering Estelle's brow as she stitched on her silk tapestry. The ladies might merely have been quarrelling, thought the visitor, and made himself as far as he could a soothing third, chatting with Estelle about Amiel and with Aurora about young Mrs. Sebastian, whose baby was to rejoice in the little garment half-finished between her hands. "Gerald," Aurora interrupted him in the middle of a sentence, letting her hands and work drop in her lap, "something so queer and unpleasant has happened!" He raised both eyebrows in solicitous participation, and mutely questioned. "It's about Charlie Hunt. I never would have imagined--you wouldn't either." "My imagination, dear friend, is more far-reaching in some ways than yours," he quickly corrected her, "and has had more practice than yours in ways of unpleasantness. But do tell me what it is that has happened." "Charlie Hunt! Charlie Hunt!" she repeated, like one unable to make herself believe a thing. "Charlie Hunt to turn nasty like that from one day to the next!" "To turn----" "He was here to dinner just two weeks ago and perfectly all right. We had a nice, long chat together on the sofa. But he didn't make his party-call quite as soon as he usually does, so when I saw him at Brenda's wedding I thought of course he'd come up and tell me how busy he'd been or some other taradiddle. But he didn't come near me. I was sort of surprised,--still, there were so many people there that he knew, and we didn't stay quite to the end, you remember. I didn't even think enough about it to mention it to Estelle. Well, this forenoon I went to the bank, and when I'd got my money, I happened to catch sight of Charlie, in the side-room, you know, where his desk is. I thought I'd like to speak to him. He's always wanted me to ask for him when I went to the bank, and I've done it more than once, and we've had five minutes' chat. I was just going to tease him a little bit about coming to see me so seldom nowadays, when he used to come so often, and ask about the lady in the case. There really is one, I guess. Italo told me. So I asked the old boy--you know the one I mean, the old servant of the bank, who's always there, to tell Mr. Hunt that Mrs. Hawthorne would like to speak with him, and then I took a seat, and in a minute in came Charlie, with just his usual look. "Now, I want to tell you that I've never had one unpleasant word with Charlie Hunt; I've always liked him real well. I put down my foot against letting him run me and my house, but there never was a word said about it. I balked, but I didn't kick. All along I've been just as nice to him as I know how, except just one moment, when I stuck a little pin into him the night of the _veglione_, not supposing that he'd ever know who did it.