"It was my duty. Don't look at me like that, Thomasina! Do you suppose I would believe anything against Basil I didn't have to believe? I never loved any one more than him--not even Richard, you know that. I have had this hanging over me for years. You haven't had much experience with trouble or sorrow or you would understand better than you do. And then this dreadful Mr. Utterly from New York determined to pry into our affairs. It is a wonder that I am living to-day, indeed it is!" "Basil did nothing that could not be published to the world!" said Thomasina sharply. "What is the matter with you? What are you afraid of? Have you repeated this to any one else?" "You know me better than that," said Mrs. Lister with dignity. "You have been my companion since we were children. How can you ask such a question?" "But what do you mean? What is there to suspect about Basil? What is creeping out?" "You are so sharp-witted about many things, Thomasina. You know so much more than I do in so many ways. You know what I mean and yet you pretend that you do not!" "I do not know what you mean!" "Even Mr. Utterly saw that Eleanor Bent has eyes like Basil and he never saw her but once or twice. You can't fail to see it! And there is this writing!" Thomasina always sat quietly, but now she seemed to have turned to stone. After a long time Mary Alcestis took her hands from her eyes and looked up. "You look at me as though I were a fool and wicked, too, Thomasina." Thomasina made no answer, but continued to stare with a face as white as Mrs. Lister's sheets. Mrs. Lister sat up suddenly in bed. "I hear some one downstairs, I believe it is Dr. Lister. Will you tell him, Thomasina, that I am trying to sleep?" Thomasina rose quickly. "You are a fool, Mary Alcestis," said she slowly. "Oh, Thomasina!" Mary Alcestis laid herself down. "This is an invention of your own brain. Shame upon you, Mary Alcestis!" Mrs. Lister now covered her face with the sheet. Thomasina went out and closed the door. The astonishment in her eyes had changed to a sick horror. She held feebly to the hand rail as she descended the steps. For the first moment in her life she looked old. She heard Dr. Lister moving about in his study, but she did not deliver Mary Alcestis's message. It made no difference to her whether or not Mary Alcestis was disturbed in her sleep. Forgetting to raise her sunshade, she crossed the sunniest spaces of the campus without feeling the heat, and went down the street past her own gateway to Dr. Green's office. There she waited, sitting straight in a small stiff chair until black Virginia, in answer to her ring, entered from a distant quarter of the house. Virginia blinked away the last drowsiness of her mid-morning nap as she looked admiringly at Thomasina. "Doctor's gone away, Miss Thomas'." "Where to?" "Baltimore." "I saw him less than an hour ago." "Yessum, but he went to the train like a cyclone." "When will he be back?"