"Well, Jack Sidmore knows the gentleman, and he says there is no doubt he has suspicious relations with Miss or Madam The-Lord-knows-who. So, you see, you're to drop Mr. Falconer like a hot potato--to give him the cut direct." "It would be a shame to if he's all right, and I feel certain he is," said Gertrude, still showing fight. "Now, look here, Gert: don't be foolish. It won't do to compromise yourself. Be advised by me: I'm your guardian angel, you know. You can spare Mr. Falconer: your train will be long enough with him cut off." "He's the most interesting acquaintance I've made this winter," said Gertrude persistently. "Don't you say so, Sue? Oughtn't Gertrude to cut him? You've heard what we've been talking about, haven't you?" "Please don't appeal to me," Susan managed to say without lifting her eyes from the blurred page before her. She had been more than once on the point of telling Gertrude and Tom what she knew about Mr. Falconer--that it was her house he had rented for his friend, etc. But everything about the matter was so indefinite. She was fearful of exposing her unhappy heart, and she had withal some vague hope of unsnarling the tangled skein when she should find opportunity to think. So she allowed them to finish up their discussion and to leave the room without a hint of the facts in her knowledge. When they had gone the set, statuesque features relaxed. A stricken look settled like a shadow over them. You would have said, "It will never depart: that face can never brighten again." The thing in Susan's heart was not despair. There was the suffering that comes from the blight of a sweet hope, from the rude dispossession of a good long withheld. But overriding everything else was humiliation--a feeling of degradation, such as some deed of shame would engender. Her spirit was in the dust, for she knew now that she had given her love unasked. Was not this enough, after all the years of longing and dreary waiting and sickening commonplace? Could not the Fates have let her off from this cup, so bitter to a proud woman's lips? Why should she be delivered over to an unworthy love? Why should they exact this uttermost farthing of anguish her heart could pay? But is he unworthy? is this proved? asked the sweet voice of Hope. Then the face which you were sure could never brighten, did brighten, but, alas! so little; for there was another voice, a voice that dismayed: "Why otherwise the silence, the mystery?" Persistently the question was repeated, till Mrs. Summerhaze came in and asked Susan to do some marketing for dinner. "You look all fagged, anyway: the fresh air 'll be good for you."