What superb anger there was in her look and tone. It was scarcely like her to be so irritable, but she was not herself this evening. The tamed leopard, when goaded too hard, sometimes turns on its keeper, and the gentlest heart has a spark of fire smoldering in its depths that may be rudely stirred into a destructive flame. Miss Lavinia recoiled timorously from the fire that blazed in those wondrous dark eyes. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Winans," she answered, smoothly. "I did not know you were so angry about it, though, of course, you feel irritated about it, as every right-minded person must feel. I think myself Mr. Conway has acted unbecomingly. You had a right to change your mind in his absence if you liked, and it _was_ silly in him to make such ado about it all, when the best plan was to let it all blow over." "Do you mean to insinuate that I was affianced to Mr. Conway during his absence, and threw him over for a wealthier rival, Miss Story?" demanded Grace, indignantly. "That is what rumor assigns as the cause of the late 'unpleasantness,' to call it by a mild name," returned the persevering spinster, carefully taking down mental notes of the conversation to report to her gossips. "Then rumor is, as usual, mistaken. Mr. Conway never has been, never can be, more than the merest acquaintance to me," answered Mrs. Winans, briefly and coldly. "Indeed! Thank you, my dear friend, for reposing such implicit confidence in me. I am glad to know the truth of the matter, and to be able to tell people that you are not the heartless flirt they try to make you out. Mr. Conway's folly is indeed reprehensible, and he no doubt deserves all he suffers." All he suffers! The pale listener wondered if he suffered half so much as she did. What was his selfish disappointment to the disgrace, the trouble, the sorrow he had brought on her and her innocent baby. Her heart hardened toward him as she listened. "Let us drop the subject," she said, proudly. "Mr. Conway is hardly worth being the protracted subject of our conversation. It were better had he remained on the other side of the ocean." "That's the truth," said Miss Lavinia, briskly. "The foolish fellow. To come all the way home to be shot down for a woman who never even cared for him, and a married woman at that." "To be shot down did you say, Miss Story? I confess I do not understand you. Will you explain yourself? You have been talking in enigmas all this time." Mrs. Winans rose from her seat, and taking a step forward, looked at the incorrigible old gossip, her red lips half apart, her dusk-blue orbs alight, her whole appearance indicative of eager, repressed excitement. "Why, you seem surprised," said the spinster, maliciously. "Why Mrs. Winans, didn't you know of the almost fatal termination of the duel? Ah, that accounts for your calmness and composure. I thought you were not utterly heartless. I see it all. They have kept the papers from you." "The duel! What duel?"