Tom helped Myrtle up the steps; the Sister Portress responded to their summons on the bell, and they were shown into a small parlor, from which Cis was conducted to another reception room, where a tall nun, in the beautiful white habit of her order, came to hear from her the story of this latest rescue and petitioner for her charity. There was no question of Myrtle’s rejection. Another nun came to take her away to the infirmary, and Cis left the convent with the promise to come regularly to inquire after Myrtle, whose condition the infirmarian at once pronounced grave. Tom took Cis’s hand and slipped it into his arm; she was trembling. “Great old adventure, splendid Cis?” he said. “Oh, Tom, don’t talk about it; I can’t!” Cis almost sobbed. “You don’t know how wonderful it is!” CHAPTER XXII ENTANGLED THREADS When Tom put the key of Nan’s front door into the keyhole and swung the door open for Cis to precede him into the house, she darted forward and began swiftly to mount the stairs. “Oh, say, Cis, hold on!” Tom remonstrated. “What am I to tell Nan?” “Anything you like, but beg her to give me a little time to myself to straighten out my thoughts. I’m--I suppose I’m tired, Tom,” Cis paused to say, then continued upstairs, not answering as Nan called from the dining room: “Cis, oh, Cis! Come in here a minute! I’ve just finished the baby’s new coat and pressed it. Come, see it!” Tom joined Nan, flushed and happy over the ironing board, with baby Matt kicking and cooing in the clothes basket, liking the flavor of its edge, over which he had fallen and was chewing it. “Say, Nan, what do you think?” asked Tom mysteriously. “Talk about melodramas and adventure stories! Life can give the best author cards and spades and beat him out on plots! Rodney Moore’s wife was sitting on a park bench, committing suicide, all by herself, when along came Cis and your brother. Cis saw the bottle, ran like a Marathon victor, jumped at her, knocked the bottle to smithereens, and then we took the lady to the Good Shepherd! She’s a wreck in every way a woman can wreck herself. How’s that? Rodney Moore’s ex-wife!” Nan had dropped into a chair, her iron in her lap, and was staring at Tom with a horrified face. “Tom, it can’t be!” she gasped. “That woman doesn’t live here.” “Don’t know as to that, but she was certainly going to die here,” insisted Tom. “What do you suppose it means? If she had taken the stuff that chap would have been free; not divorced, _free_. And Cis could have married him, if she pleased. Yet it was Cis hit the woman’s arm and saved her! What about it? What does it mean?” “It must mean that the poor wretch is going to have a chance to repent and die decently some day,” said pious little Nan. “But Rodney Moore’s wife! And Cis saved her! What a story! Why, Tom, it makes me shake! Oh, I must go to Cis! I’ll take the baby up to her. He’ll comfort her.”