“A telegram--” Aline always said it with the same slightly ironic intonation, as if it were still matter of wonder and amusement to her that any one should be in such haste to communicate with her mistress. Mrs. Clephane, in sables and pearls, with a great house at her orders, was evidently a more considerable person than the stray tenant of the little third-floor room at the Hôtel de Minorque, and no one was more competent to measure the distance between them than Aline. But still--a telegram! Kate opened the envelope with bloodless fingers. “I am going.” That was all--there was not even a signature. He had kept his word; and he wanted her to know it. She felt the loosening of the cords about her heart; a deep breath of relief welled up in her. He had kept his word. There was a tap on the door, and Anne, radiant, confident, came in. “You’ve had a telegram? Not about Aunt Janey--” Aunt Janey? For a second Kate could not remember, could not associate the question with anything related to the last hours. Then she collected herself, just in time to restrain a self-betraying clutch at the telegram. With a superhuman effort at composure she kept her hands from moving, and left the message lying, face up, on the coverlet between herself and Anne. Yet what if Anne were to read the _Baltimore_ above the unsigned words? “No; it’s not about Aunt Janey.” She made a farther effort at recollection. “The fact is, the aunts had a panic ... an absurd panic.... Aunt Janey’s failed a good deal, of course; it’s the beginning of the end. But there’s no danger of anything sudden--not the least.... I’m glad I went, though; it comforted them to see me.... And it was really rather wrong of me not to have been before.” Ah, now, at last she remembered, and how thankfully, that she had, after all, been to Meridia; had, automatically, after leaving Chris, continued her journey, surprised and flattered the aunts by her unannounced appearance, and spent an hour with them before taking the train back to New York. She had had the wit, at the time, to see how useful such an alibi might be, and then, in the disorder of her dreadful vigil, had forgotten about it till Anne’s question recalled her to herself. The complete gap in her memory frightened her, and made her feel more than ever unfitted to deal with what might still be coming--what must be coming. Anne still shed about her the reflected radiance of her bliss. “I’m so glad it’s all right--so glad you went. And of course, dear, you didn’t tell them anything, did you?” “Tell them anything--?” “About me.” The lids dropped, the lashes clasped her vision. How could her mother have forgotten?--that flutter of the lids seemed to say. “Darling! But of course not.” Kate Clephane brought the words out with dry lips. Her hand stole out to Anne’s, then drew back, affecting to pick up the telegram. She could not put her hand in her daughter’s just yet.