But Carolyn did not resent the words or the touch. She was staring straight in front of her mother, a nerveless droop to her mouth, a touching despair in her whole aspect. "You are not going to go about wearing the willow, are you? Oh, the scamp! The villain!" The sharp voice echoed in the place. Carolyn now tried to rise. She turned indignantly to her mother, her eyes flashing. "If you call him such names I'll leave the house," she said, firmly. "Good heavens! She defends him! The vile--" "Mother!" "Carolyn!" The girl asserted herself. She spoke with dignity. "You are speaking of the man who was to be my husband; please remember that. And I love him; remember that also. By accident he met that--that--" her voice sharpened--"he met Prudence. She, of course, tempted him; she would tempt an angel from heaven. And he loved her. It was all a mistake, his thinking he cared for me,--that is, to marry me. Now we've got to bear it. Prudence--but no," coldly, "why should I talk of her?" "You defend him!" Mrs. Ffolliott cried, with hysterical repetition. "That a child of mine should--" "Mother!" said the girl again, "we won't talk of this." "Not talk of this insult!--this--I say he's a scamp, and he shall never come into my house again!" "He will probably never try. We shall never see him again. And he won't be happy with her. Oh, I want him to be happy, whatever happens!" Carolyn said the last words as if she did not know she was not alone. Her face at that moment had a look of such fervid loveliness that her mother involuntarily turned away as if from something sacred. [Illustration: "'LET ME SEE IT,' SAID CAROLYN."] CHAPTER XI. A KNOCK-DOWN BLOW. After this Carolyn refused to talk of Lawrence or Prudence. She immediately decided to go back to their city house and go on with the winter precisely as usual. Mrs. Ffolliott made two remarks, and then dropped the subject. One of these remarks was, "I can't tell how thankful I am that we didn't put on black, though I should have done it if you hadn't stopped us, I must say." The other was, "If your father had been living, Caro, things wouldn't have happened like this;" though how Carolyn's father would have prevented these things from happening was not explained. The girl and her mother went everywhere and received the same as usual. After their five hundred friends had looked at Caro in great but partially concealed curiosity as to "how she took it," they all tried to act as if nothing had happened, and most of them conceded that it was wise of Miss Ffolliott to go right on with her ordinary life. Some of them remarked, "But there is a curious look about her eyes, isn't there? I suppose she really cared for that man."