your friend. Let me know—can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But don't think I'm angry—I am only so sorry for you, dear—so very, very sorry. Do let me help you."
She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer's. Afterwards she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good, and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled herself—for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs. Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone away—no one knew where she had gone.
Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself for not having rushed towards the white face that peered through the glass door. She could have done something—anything. So she thinks, but I am not sure.
******
"And it was none of it true. Bill," she said piteously, when, Mabel and Gracie safely tucked up in bed, she told him all about it. "I don't know how she could. No dead lover—no re-
