"Yes, he might. But I hope he'll do no such thing," answered her sister. "He's always the thorn in my side, and always will be. Don't know the meaning of the word 'decency.' However, he's not like to trouble us much when we're married. I shan't be sorry to change my name now, Phyllis. And the sooner you cease to be called Lintern, too, the better." "About mother?" "I shouldn't presume to say a word about mother, one way or the other," answered Cora. "I'm not a fool, and I'm not going to trouble myself about the things that other people do; but all the same, I shall be glad to get out of it and start with a clean slate among a different class of people." "What amazing cleverness to hide it all their lives like that," speculated Phyllis. "I'm sure us never would have been so clever as to do it." "It became a habit, no doubt. 'Twas salt to their lives, I reckon, and made 'em all the fonder of each other," declared Cora. "Everyday married life must have looked terrible tame to them--doing what they did. Their time was one long love-making in secret." "I'm awful sorry for mother now, though," continued Phyllis; "because when he dies she can't put on weeds and go and hear the funeral sermon, and do all the things a proper widow does do." "No," admitted her sister; "that she certainly can't. She'll have to hide the truth pretty close from this day forward, that's very clear. She owes that to me--and to you; and I shall see she pays her debt." "She will, of course," replied the other. "She's a terrible brave woman, and always has been. She'll hide it up close enough--so close as we shall, for that matter. Heathman's the only one who's like to let it out. You know what a careless creature he is." Cora frowned. "I do," she said. "And I know there's no love lost between him and me. A coarse man, he is, and don't care what gutter he chooses his friends out of. Take one thing with another, it might be so well to marry Ned at the appointed time, and get it hard and fast." So they talked, and misprized Heathman from the frosty standpoint of their own hearts. Rather than bring one shadow on his mother's fame, the brother of these girls would have bitten out his tongue and swallowed it. CHAPTER XII Nathan Baskerville's bedroom faced the south. A text was nailed upon the wall over his head, and an old photograph of his father stood upon the mantelpiece. To right and left of this memorial appeared trinkets made of shells. A pair of old carriage lamps, precious from association, decorated either end of the mantelshelf. An old print of Niagara Falls, that his mother had valued, was nailed above it.