“Poor Jimmie, indeed!” said Mrs. Hardacre, somewhat relieved at finding the note contained no reference to the part played by Norma. “It's very good of Morland, but I wish he would not mix himself up in this scandal.” “I can't see what less he could do than look after his friend's interests,” said Norma. “I wish the man had been shot or hanged before he came down here,” said Mrs. Hardacre, vindictively. “That's the worst of associating with such riff-raff. One never knows what they will do. It will teach you not to pick people out of the gutter and set them in a drawing-room.” Mrs. Hardacre rose. She did not often have the opportunity of triumphing over her daughter. She crossed the room and paused for a moment by Norma, who sat motionless with her chin in her hand, apparently too dismayed to retort. “I am glad to see symptoms of sanity,” she remarked. Norma brought down her hand hard upon the table and leaped to her feet and faced her mother. “I tell you, it's impossible! Impossible! He is not that kind of man. It is some horrible mistake. I will ask him myself. I will get the truth from his own lips.” “You shall certainly do nothing of the kind,” cried her mother; and in order to have the last word she went out and slammed the door behind her. Norma sat by the window again. The red September sun was setting, and bathed downs and trees in warm light, and glinted on the spire of a little village church a mile away. Everything it touched was at peace, save the bowed head of the girl, clasped with white fingers which still retained the dull brown marks of blood. Could she believe the revolting story? A woman so driven to desperation must have been cruelly handled. Her sex rose up against the destroyer. Her social training had caused her to regard with cynical indifference ordinary breaches of what is popularly termed the moral law. In the fast, idle set which she generally frequented it was as ordinary for a man to neigh after his neighbour's wife as to try to win his friend's money; as unsurprising for him to keep a mistress as a stud of race-horses; the crime was to marry her. But it was not customary, even in smart society, to drive women to murder their new-born babes and kill themselves. A callous brutality suggested itself, and the contemplation of it touched humanity, sex, essential things. Could she believe the story? She shuddered. The dressing-gong sounded through the house. Her maid entered, drew the curtains, and lit the gas; then was dismissed. Norma would not go down to dinner. A little food and drink in her own room would be all that she could swallow. Later, Connie Deering, who had changed her dress, tapped at the door and was bidden to enter. A quantity of powder vainly strove to hide the traces of recent tears on her pretty face. She was a swollen-featured, piteous little butterfly. “How is he?” asked Norma.