Rena neither knew nor cared. She had confessed everything, and her heart was lighter than it had been since she came to Oakfield. Colin did not seem very angry now, and went with her to the door, offering to send her home in his carriage. But she preferred to walk, as the day was fine and she wanted time in which to collect herself before encountering Mrs. Parks, to whom she went with her story the moment she reached home, telling it in a straightforward way and taking all the blame to herself. That lady was horrified at first, then incredulous, and finally declared that she suspected all the while that there was something she could not get hold of and that Irene was not the real stuff a lady should be. Like Rex and Colin, she was not proof against Rena’s penitence and tears and the little sinner was forgiven, while Irene went far down in the scale as the chief offender, inasmuch as she was the poor relation after all, and had received Mr. Travers’ attentions as a matter of course. “Yes, and courted ’em, too, and put on as many airs as if she was the Queen of Sheba, askin’ for maids and bath-rooms and dinner at six, taking the best chamber and everything, and we lettin’ her. I am so mad at myself?” Mrs. Parks confided to Lottie, when talking the matter over with her. And Lottie, being a girl, thought the whole a lark, in which she would liked to have had a hand; and looked upon Rena as the heroine of a romance acted before her eyes. Rena, however, felt like anything but a heroine, and the letters she wrote that afternoon to Irene and Tom, telling what she had done were full of contrition and blotted with tears. She did not then realize how very ill Rex was, and she merely said to both that he had the fever and Miss Bennett was nursing him; while to Tom she added, “I wish you would hurry back. I want you so much, and feel so ashamed of myself.” Tom’s answer came the next day, commending her for what he called her pluck, and saying he should be with her soon. Irene’s was longer in coming, and when it did arrive it brought the news that Johnnie was dead and Irene heart-broken, and her mother so prostrated with grief and care that she could not be left alone.