She wished she knew what they were saying; she had an intense desire to hear more about this thing which she so resented, which was so roiling to her. It fascinated as well as galled her; she wanted to know just how this Ruth Holland looked, how she had looked that night of the wedding, what she had said and done. The fact of being in the very house where Ruth Holland had been that last night she was with her friends seemed to bring close something mysterious, terrible, stirring imagination and curiosity. Had she been with Deane that night? Had he taken her to the wedding?--taken her home? She hardened to him in the thought of there being this thing she did not know about. It began to seem he had done her a great wrong in not preparing her for a thing that could bring her embarrassment. Everyone else knew about it! Coming there a bride, and the very first thing encountering something awkward! She persuaded herself that her pleasure in this party, in this opening up of her life there, was spoiled, that Deane had spoiled it. And she tormented herself with a hundred little wonderings. She and Cora Albright went home together in Edith's brougham. Cora was full of talk of Ruth Holland, this new development, Ruth's return, stirring it all up again for her. Amy's few discreet questions brought forth a great deal that she wanted to know. Cora had a worldly manner, and that vague sympathy with evil that poetizes one's self without doing anything so definite as condoning, or helping, the sinner. "I do think," she said, with a little shrug, "that the town has been pretty hard about it. But then you know what these middle-western towns are." Amy, at this appeal to her sophistication, gravely nodded. "I do feel sorry for Ruth," Cora added in a more personal tone. "Will you go to see her?" Amy asked, rather pointedly. "Oh, I couldn't do that," replied Cora. "My family--you know,--or perhaps you don't know. I'm related to Mrs. Williams," she laughed. "Oh!" Amy ejaculated, aghast, and newly fascinated by the horror, what somehow seemed the impossibleness of the whole thing--that she should be talking of Ruth Holland to a woman related to Mrs. Williams! "I suppose _she_ felt terribly," Amy murmured. Cora laughed a little. "Oh, I don't know. It never seemed to me that Marion would do much feeling. Feeling is so--ruffling." "She looks," said Amy, a little aggressively, "as though she might not show all she feels." "Oh, I suppose not," Cora agreed pleasantly. "Perhaps I do Marion an injustice. She may have suffered in silence. Certainly she's kept silence. Truth is, I never liked her so very well. I like Ruth much the better of the two. I like warmth--feeling." She was leaning forward and looking from the window. "That's the Hollands'," she said. And under her breath, compassionately, she murmured, "Poor Ruth!" "I should think you _would_ go and see her," said Amy, curiously resentful of this feeling.