When Arsdale with the nurse at his heels rushed up-stairs, he found his sister before the mirror combing her hair. There was nothing hysterical about her, but her white calmness in itself was ominous.

"What is it, Elaine?" he panted, "has Donaldson gone mad?"

"No," she answered, "I should say that he is quite sane now."

"But what the deuce was the trouble with him? He looked as though he had lost his senses."

"Perhaps he has just found them."

The nurse interrupted him, in an aside,

"I would n\'t agitate her further." To the girl, she said, "Don\'t you think you had better lie down for a little, Miss Arsdale?"

"Please don\'t worry about me," she replied calmly, "I am going to change my dress and then I shall come down-stairs. I wish you would go to Marie—both of you. It is she who needs attention."

"But—" broke in Arsdale.

"There\'s a good boy. Do what you can to make her comfortable. I will join you in a few minutes."

Uncomprehending, Arsdale reluctantly led the way out. She closed the door behind them and turned to her mirror again.

"Well," demanded her reflection, "what are you going to do now?"

"Do? I shall go on as I have always done."

"Shall you?"

"Why not? There is Ben. Perhaps we shall go out into the country to live—perhaps we shall travel."

"Shall you?"

"That is certainly the sensible thing to do."

"Shall you?"

She smoothed back the hair from her throbbing temples.

"He looked very much in need of help," suggested the mirror.

"Who?"

"Peter Donaldson."

"Oh," gasped Elaine, "why did he do it? Why did he do it?"

The mirror recognized the question as one which every woman has asked at least once in her lifetime. But somehow this did not swerve her from her insistence.

"You must judge him from what you yourself have seen of him," the mirror harped back to Donaldson\'s own words.

"He acted bravely before me—before Ben. He did do bravely," cried the girl.

"And yet below these acts he had a craven heart?" hinted she of the mirror.

"No. No. It isn\'t possible! It isn\'t possible!"

"But he admitted the dreadful thing he tried to do."

"That was the folly of a moment. He has grown through it. He asked no mercy—asked no pardon. Did n\'t you see the expression upon his haggard face as he left the room?"

"Were you looking?" queried she of the mirror in surprise. "Your eyes were away from him."

"But one couldn\'t help but see that!"

The woman in the mirror found herself suddenly put upon the defensive.

"Where has he gone?" cried the girl. "What is he going to do now?"

"Will he do bravely whatever lies before him?"

"Yes. He will! He will!"

"How do you know?"

"I know. That is enough."

"Then why do you not call him back?"

The girl\'s cheeks grew scarlet.

"The shame of what I told him yesterday!"

"Was it not a bit brave of him to turn away from you?"

"He should have explained to me at that time why he was going. He needed me then."

"Do you not suppose that he knew it? Do you not suppose that it took the strength of a dozen men to go alone to what he thought was waiting for him?"

"I know nothing."

"And yet you saw his eyes as he stood before you then? And you saw his eyes as he left you five minutes ago?"

"I won\'t see. I can\'t risk—again!"

"Yet you love him?"

Once again the flaming scarlet in her cheeks. Her lips trembled. She turned away from the mirror.

"I said nothing of love," she insisted.

"Yet you love him?"

"Why did he do it?" she moaned.

"Yet you love him?"

"He did so bravely—he spoke so bravely, yet—"

"He learned. If, of all the world of men, you were to choose one to stand by your side when hardest pressed, whom would you choose?"

"I would choose him," answered the girl without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because—"

"After all, is n\'t that enough? You would trust him to fight an eternity as he has fought for you these few days. Twice he staked his life for you—once his good name."

"But he thought he was soon to die."

"All the more precious the time that was left."

Her eyes brightened.

"Yes. Yes. I had not thought of that."

"Yet he did this and further risked what was left to save an unknown messenger boy."

"Oh, he did well!"

"Then he came to you like a man and told what you might never have discovered, just because he wished to stand clean before you."

"Yes," she breathed.

"Why did he do that?" demanded her reflection.

"I—I don\'t know."

"Why did he do that?"

"Because—"

"After all, isn\'t that enough?"

"But he said nothing. If only he had turned back!"

"What right had he to say the thing you wish? If he had been less a man he would have turned back."

"Where has he gone? What is he going to do?"

"Why don\'t you find out?"

"It would be unmaidenly."

"Yes, and very womanly. Do you owe him nothing?"

"I owe him everything."

"Then—"

"I must send Ben to find him. I must—oh, but I need n\'t do anything more?"

"No. Nothing more."

Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet. Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb. She hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben anxiously pacing the library. He appeared greatly agitated—anchorless.

"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away as I did."

"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"

"No. No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me. But for the moment I could n\'t see it. It was my fault that he went."

"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the whole episode.

"It was nothing that counts now. I want you to promise me, Ben, that you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you of it."

His face cleared.

"Just a little tiff? But he took it hard. I never saw a man so worked up over anything."

"It belongs to the past," she hurried on, eager to allow it to pass as he interpreted it. "It would be cruel to him to bring it up again. Will you promise me, Ben?"

"I will promise. But I \'m afraid you overdid it. It is going to be hard to straighten him out."

"No. It is all straightened out now. All that remains for you to do is to find him and say that I—that I wish him to come back for lunch."

"Is it that simple?"

He smiled, his easy-going nature glad to seize upon anything that promised relief from such a jumble as this.

"You must say nothing more than that," she put in, frightened at the sound of her own words. Supposing that he would not ............