“Well, mamma, I have learned something this morning that will astonish you,” Evelyn remarked, as she threw off her wraps and sank upon a chair, quivering to her finger-tips with excitement over the precious morsel of scandal she believed she had secured. “Ah!” madam remarked placidly, but looking up interested, nevertheless. “Is anybody married, or going to be?—or maybe it is a bit of scandal.” “It may prove to be more than a bit, if we are not careful,” Evelyn excitedly returned. “It’s about Salome.” “Ha!” exclaimed her mother, now all on the alert, “what about her?” “There is some deep mystery connected with the girl, just as we have thought, and there is doubtless some good reason why she has been so anxious to keep her history from us all,” said Evelyn impressively. “What do you mean?” demanded madam eagerly. “I have learned this morning, by a lucky circumstance, that she is a runaway from her home and family, and has been sailing about under an assumed name—perhaps she even married True under a false one.” “What!” exclaimed Madame Winthrop sternly, and growing pale; “how do you know? who has told you this?” Evelyn then related her adventures of the morning, enlarging upon the circumstances to suit herself, vividly portraying Salome’s agitated demeanor and her sudden flight, and assuming as facts what she had guessed at from her observation, and what she had inferred from the strange man’s conversation. Madame Winthrop listened to all this with a white, set face, her heart growing harder than ever toward the girl whom her son had married. When her daughter concluded she said, in a low, icy voice: “Well, Evelyn, this is a matter that must be cleared up. I am going to know whom my son has married and brought into a family upon whose name there has never been even the shadow of a stain. I am going to make that girl tell me her history this very hour.” “She has a good deal of spirit, mamma, and perhaps she will refuse to say anything about herself,” Evelyn suggested, but secretly delighted at her mother’s determination. “She shall tell me—she shall no longer insult us with her companionship and by enshrouding herself in such mystery,” was the resolute retort. “Well, but suppose she will not, what can you do? This is her home; she is mistress here. True has made her such, and we cannot compel her to go away. Likely as not, she will tell us, if we object to associating with her, that we can take ourselves out of her way,” Miss Winthrop suggested. “She would not dare,” replied her mother sternly; “and if I find your suspicions regarding her confirmed we must manage to get rid of her by strategy if no other means will avail. My son’s brilliant career shall not be ruined at the outset by a scheming adventuress. I never would have believed,” she continued, with a groan, “that Truman would become so infatuated as to marry any girl without investigating her family history.”