It was on the third day that Aline, bringing in the breakfast-tray with a bunch of violets (Anne’s daily attention since she had been gone), produced also a telegram; as on that far-off morning, four months ago, when the girl’s first message had come to her mother with the same flowers. Kate held the envelope for a moment before opening it, as she had done on that other occasion--but not because she wanted to prolong her illusion. This time there was no illusion in the thin envelope between her fingers; she could feel through it the hard knife-edge of reality. If she delayed she did so from cowardice. Chris and Lilla-- She tore open the envelope and read: “Engaged to Horace Maclew madly happy Lilla.” The telegram fluttered to the floor, and Kate Clephane leaned back on her pillows, feeling a little light-headed. “Is Madame not well?” Aline sharply questioned. “Oh, yes; perfectly well. Perfectly well!” Kate repeated joyously. But she continued to lean back, staring vacantly ahead of her, till Aline admonished her, as she had done when the other message came, that the chocolate would be getting cold. A respite--a respite. Oh, yes, it was at least a respite! XI. There was something so established and reassuring in the mere look of Enid Drover’s drawing-room that Kate Clephane, waiting there that afternoon for her sister-in-law to come in, felt a distinct renewal of confidence. The house was old Mrs. Clephane’s wedding gift to her daughter, and everything in it had obviously been selected by some one whose first thought concerning any work of art was to ask if it would chip or fade. Nothing in the solid and costly drawing-room had chipped or faded; it had retained something of Enid’s invulnerable youthfulness, and, like herself, had looked as primly old-fashioned in its first bloom as in its well-kept maturity. It was odd that so stable a setting should have produced that hurricane of a Lilla; and Kate smiled at the thought of the satisfaction with which the very armchairs, in their cushioned permanence, would welcome her back to domesticity. But Mrs. Drover, when she appeared, took it on a higher plane. Had Lilla ever been unstable, or in any way failed to excel? If so, her mother, and her mother’s background, showed no signs of remembering. The armchairs stood there stolidly, as if asking what you meant by such ideas. Enid was a little troubled--she confessed--by the fact that Horace Maclew was a widower, and so much older than her child. “I’m not sure if such a difference of age is not always a risk.... But then Mr. Maclew is a man of such strong character, and has behaved so generously.... There will be such opportunities for doing good....”