If Constance had deliberately taken the pin, then she was a thief. If she had found it, but purposely failed to return it, she was still a thief. Marjorie opened her lips to pour forth a torrent of reproaches, but the words would not come. She had a wild desire to pry open the hand which held her precious butterfly and seize it, but her hands remained limply at her sides. It was her pin, her very own, yet she could not touch it unless Constance chose to hand it to her. But Constance made no such proffer. Still clutching the precious butterfly she continued to weep unrestrainedly. Marjorie waited patiently. Having failed hopelessly as a comforter, Charlie had hobbled to his corner, where his Christmas tree still stood, and, with that blessed forgetfulness of sorrow which childhood alone knows, had dragged forth his violin and begun a dismal screeching and scraping, a nerve-racking obligato to his foster sister's sobs. Five endless minutes passed, but Constance made no sign. "I'm--I'm going now," choked Marjorie. Hot tears lay thick on her eyelashes. She stumbled blindly toward the door, her face averted from the girl who had so misused and abused her friendship. "Good-bye, Constance." Something in the reproachful ring of that "Good-bye," startled Constance out of her grief. She had been too greatly overcome with her own trouble to note the effect of her tears and broken words upon Marjorie. Surely Marjorie was not angry with her for crying. "Wait a minute, Marjorie," she called. "Please don't be angry. I won't cry any more. I want to tell you about the pin. It was----" But only the sound of a closing door answered her. Marjorie was gone. CHAPTER XX THE CROWNING INJURY Marjorie never remembered just how she reached home that afternoon. She followed the familial streets mechanically, her brain tortured with but one burning thought--Constance was a thief. Over and over the dreadful sentence repeated itself in her mind. "How could she?" was her half-sobbed whisper, as she slipped quietly into the house, and, without glancing toward the living-room, went softly upstairs to her room. She wanted to be alone. Not even her beloved captain could ease the hurt dealt her by the girl she had loved and trusted. Her mother must never know that Constance was unworthy. No one should know, but she could never, never be friends with Constance again. With the tears running down her cheeks Marjorie took off the new fur coat she had worn so proudly that afternoon and dropped it upon the first convenient chair. Her hat followed it; then throwing herself across the bed, she gave way to uncontrolled weeping. Until that moment she had not realized how greatly she had loved this girl who had Mary's eyes of true blue, but who was so sadly lacking in Mary's fine sense of honor.