The sound of a machine coming up the driveway cut short further arguments. Griggs rushed to the window. “Here’s a cab now, Ma’am,” he said, hastening to open the door. “At last! At last!” Marjorie held her hand over her heart. “Thank God—they’ve come!” She stood with bated breath, facing the door, expecting she knew not—what. But whatever else it might have been that unfolded itself before Marjorie Benton’s hot worried eyes, it could not have stabbed her as what she did see. An icy hand clutched her heart. The room swam about her. She tried to move forward with a cry, but stood rooted to the spot. For there, standing on the threshold was her own daughter, her baby, Elinor—hair hanging in wild disarray, white-faced, trembling, clothing disarranged, while moans and sobs issued from her distorted pale lips. Holding her up, guiding her tottering footsteps, her arms possessively, protectingly around Marjorie Benton’s daughter was the one woman in the world whom she hated with a deadly hatred, the woman who had taken from her the love of her own husband—Geraldine DeLacy. The mother’s breath came with a quick intake as her arms went quiveringly out toward the girl. “Elinor!” the cry came in a pitiful wail. “Oh, mother! Mother!” Elinor sobbed brokenly, as she wrenched herself from Geraldine’s arms and tottered toward her mother. Marjorie caught her as she fell. She held her closely as she had held her as a baby. “What is it, dear?” she murmured tenderly. Mother instinct told her it was no time for reproaches, but a time for soothing. “What has happened? Try to control yourself and tell me.” “Oh—I—I can’t! I can’t!” Elinor moaned. “It’s so terrible!” Trembling from head to foot Marjorie, holding Elinor closely to her, turned to Geraldine. “Perhaps, Mrs. DeLacy, you will kindly tell me—what this all means?” she asked. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Benton,” Geraldine replied gravely, “but a terrible thing has happened. I—I scarcely know how to tell you.” Marjorie’s eyes flashed fire. “Nothing can be more terrible than this dreadful suspense! You must tell me at once!” she commanded. “Very well, but I want you to believe me, Mrs. Benton, when I tell you that it grieves me greatly to be the bearer of this news.” Geraldine’s attempt at friendly conciliation passed by the distracted mother. “Go on—please!” she ordered, with set lips. “This evening,” Geraldine began, “Templeton Druid had a dinner party in his rooms after the show——” “Who is Templeton Druid?” Marjorie interrupted. “Templeton Druid was,” she laid stress upon the word, a stress unnoticed by Marjorie, although Elinor shivered in her mother’s clasp, “an actor—the most popular leading man on Broadway, and a friend of Elinor’s and Howard’s. Elinor knew you would never consent to her going to the party, so she told you she was going to the Thurstons’.”