Her decision reached, a feeling of relief swept over her, to be checked the next moment by the realization that even if she did denounce Janet she would not be believed. She was poor, she needed money, she had the opportunity, and she stole; so would read the verdict. Janet had but to ask, and a dozen diamond sunbursts, if need be, would be purchased to gratify her whim. She did not need to steal. Marjorie rose slowly to her feet and stretched her stiff muscles, switched on the light, and then commenced to undress, but she gave little thought to what she was doing, her entire attention being taken up in trying to recall what she knew of kleptomania. She remembered being told that it was a mental derangement, an irresistible propensity to steal, and that the kleptomaniac cared nothing for the objects stolen as soon as the impulse to steal was gratified. Her father had once told her of a friend who would eat no food that was not stolen, and his servants (fortunately he was wealthy) had to secrete food about the house and permit him to steal it before he would satisfy his hunger. She had also read somewhere of a kleptomaniac so obsessed by his craze that he stole the crucifix from his confessor. Merry, charming Janet to be the victim of such mental disorder! Marjorie wrung her hands in agony. Was there no way to help the child? If the news ever leaked out it would kill her delicate mother. Marjorie, pleading her indisposition, had left Janet at the dance under Duncan’s care, and a sympathetic footman having engaged a cab for her, she had returned at once to the Fordyce residence. Some hours later Janet had rapped at her door and asked how she was, and satisfied with Marjorie’s answer, had gone straight to her room without entering, to Marjorie’s intense relief; she would have broken down if she had faced her then. Marjorie was about to get into bed when she spied a note addressed to her lying on top of a neat package on her bedstead. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she tore open the envelope and listlessly read the few written lines; then, startled, read them a second and third time. The note was from her clergyman informing her that the contents of the accompanying package had been found the Sunday before in the Fordyce pew, and he thought it best to send them to her that she might return the property to the rightful owner. The note slipped unheeded to the floor, and with trembling fingers she tore open the bundle, and out fell a dozen or more handsome silk and lace doilies. Not one was alike, and a cry of horror broke from Marjorie, as, picking them up, she recognized them as belonging to hostesses with whom she and Janet had recently lunched and dined. CHAPTER XI GREAT EXPECTATIONS LAWRENCE. On Monday, December 24, Margaret A., beloved wife of Stephen Lawrence, Rear Admiral, U. S. N., aged sixty-two years. Funeral from her late residence on Wednesday at two o’clock. Interment at Arlington. Kindly omit flowers.