"You see," Bobby rattled on, "Dora knew she couldn't go to roof gardens and supper parties alone, and she couldn't keep a chap on a string without paying--so she paid. Of course she camouflaged this part of her life very daintily, as she did everything else, but going out evenings was as important to her as her business ambition was." Mrs. Wells smiled faintly at the word camouflaged, for she knew better than anyone else that this supposed story of a dressmaker was really the story of Roberta Vallis herself, thinly disguised. "The point is that after years of living exactly like a man," Miss Vallis became a shade more serious here and a note of defiance crept into her discourse, "with work and pleasure travelling along side by side, Dora was called upon to face a situation that would have brought her gay and prosperous career to a sad and shameful end in any well-constructed Sunday School book; but please notice that it did nothing of the sort in real life. Did she lose her job? She did not. Or her health or reputation? Nothing like that. After she got over the first shock of surprise Dora decided to go through with the thing, and, being tall and thin, got away with it successfully. No one suspected that the illness which kept her away from her work was anything but influenza, and--well, the child didn't live," she concluded abruptly as she caught Seraphine's disapproving glance. "The point is that Dora is today one of the most successful business women in Boston." A challenge to outraged virtue was in her tone, and all eyes turned instinctively to the psychic who was still rocking placidly. "Poor woman!" Seraphine said simply, which seemed to annoy Miss Vallis. "Why do you say that? Why is she a poor woman? She has everything she wants." "No! No indeed," was the grave reply. "She has nothing that she really wants. She has cut herself off from the operation of God's love. She is surrounded by forces that--Oh!" the medium's eyes closed for a moment and she drew a long breath, "my control tells me these forces of evil--they will destroy this girl." Roberta essayed to answer mockingly, but the words died on her lips, and there fell a moment of shivery silence until Kendall Brown broke the spell.