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Show hi- Vfolette Kimball Dunn y all of them that if present ditions continued here, they refuse to allow their children", remain friends with Valerie" Lucy had no way of kno , that this was tho purest ficti invented at the moment to bol T' up a failing argument. She could not, of course, tell that Doroth and Elise had spent a quiet g sipy afternoon in Ellse's apart' ment. She stood and clasped ho hands tightly. If this was true if she was really hurting Valer? there was only one thing to io "But I'll have to speak to Mr Alexander first," she cried. "how can I just sneak away, as if tm done something I was ashamed of? I've been terribly happy her they've been so good to me' i couldn't bear to have them think me ungrateful " (To be continued) mean, how long has it been going n"ir vou mean how long is it sincXe Mr Alexander engaged me onttor Valerie, I'm afraid know exactly. Sometime ia the early summer of last-year. ..tr.,vp vou a mother: 4o " said Lucy flatly. She added add-ed nothing to the statement "That may explain it. At least partially. How old are you? Lucy put down her darning. She 'was very careful about it, laying I her mother's gold thimble in its case, and putting away her little scissors. After this was done, she looked deliberately at Dorothy. "Do you know, I'm just a little tired of answering questions," she said. "Wouldn't you like to tell me what it is you want?" "Very well, then. I want you to pack your things and leave this house. You may take whatever, gifts my brother-in-law may have given you, but I want you to go as soon as possible. I see no reason rea-son why it shouldn't be at once. "Perhaps you'd care to tell me whose authority you have for dismissing dis-missing me?" asked Lucy. She was surprised to see how quiet she was, and how cold. 1 "The authority of common decency. de-cency. The authority of my concern con-cern for my sister's only child." She was annoyed and a little afraid of the cool-eyed young woman wo-man who looked at her so disconcertingly. discon-certingly. The girl had not taken the thing as she expected. "Come, my dear Miss what Is your name?" "Tredway," said Lucy. "Have you forgotten? You used It only a moment ago, Mr. Alexander engaged en-gaged me to come here. Anyone can see what my influence on Valerie has been. It was my Idea that if her father wanted to get rid of me he would naturally let me know.'' Dorothy sat staring at her. "You're a great deal harder than you look, aren't you?" she said. "Perhaps this isn't altogether a new experience for you. I'm perfectly per-fectly willing to speak more plainly. plain-ly. In the course of my visits with a dozen different women during yesterday, I made a point of questioning ques-tioning them. They were all my sister's friends. Women" of wealth and position,.. They assured me Lucy and Chiltern trimmed an enormous tree for her at one end of the long library. After Chiltern had gone, Lucy sat beside Mark, watching the flames in a complete companionship companion-ship neither had known before. Once a bell sounded far off in the house. They looked at each other and waited, half expecting Elise to push aside the draperies and shatter the quiet peace. But Ellse was at that moment the life of a night club party in town, where she was trying unsuccessfully, un-successfully, in the midst of a particularly par-ticularly hectic celebration, to remember re-member what she had written to Dorothy. She had to be very gay to drown the recurring fear that gripped her whenever she thought of the letter. The very fact that Dorothy had not answered made it all the more ominous. She had kept as far as she could from Wide Acres, even refusing invitations she thought might possibly include Mark. The peaceful interlude came to an abrupt end two days after Christmas. Lucy looked back on it as a special sort of compensation compensa-tion for the pain that followed. She and Valerie and Mark came in from a holiday matinee in town to find Dorothy unpacking in Ellen's El-len's old rooms, having reached Wide Acres half an hour after they had left it. They would hardly hard-ly believe Chiltern when he told them. Dorothy appeared at dinner. She acknowledged Mark's introduction to Lucy affably enough. Lucy breathed more freely. She hadn't known exactly what she expected from Dorothy, but it wasn't pleas-, ant. OHAITKK XII Synoimls When Mark Alexander's beautiful beauti-ful wife, Kllen, died, lie wan left with Valerie, Mien's daughter by u former iiuirrljige. All of Kllen's family and Intimates save Shirley want to adopt Valerie and the trust fund which Kllen left lier, but, Mark will have none of it. He takes Valerie on a trip and on. the way home (hey meet Iiicy Tredway, Tred-way, whom lie engages as Valerias Valer-ias tutor. IOIIm;, wanting to marry Mark, Is furious ahoiit this brlnR-liu? brlnR-liu? another woman into the house and Is making things as unpleasant unpleas-ant for liiicy as she ixs.sibly can. Klisn has Just returned from a parly at Mark's house and is so distil i-ImmI that she barks at her maid, who immediately gives notice no-tice and walks out. o Ellse slammed the door on her, and pulled nervously at the fastenings fas-tenings of her velvet dress. She stepped out of her things, leaving them where they fell. But a certain cer-tain canny sense left over from lean days whispered it would be as well to pick them up and hang them away. She did this, then pulled a negligee around her and sat down at her dressing table to stare suddenly into the mirror. She pushed back her hair, and looked closely. She was, she thought, far more beautiful than Shirley. Or than the brown-eyed idiot, Lucy, with her golden hair. What more did a man want than beauty? She got up, lighted a cigarette, and lay down on her couch to think. As she lay there, it came to her I quite suddenly and sharply that she had lost Mark. That was how "Why? Have you blacklisted parties?" par-ties?" ' Dorothy looked at him sadly. "Oh, no," she said. "Whether one's nature is like a shallow brook or a deeper stream is more or less out of one's hands, I suppose. sup-pose. I only feel it's rather a pity when grief has so weak a hold " "Then that's where- we disagree," dis-agree," Mark said. "To me, grief should have no hold on youth at all. Perhaps it's all a matter of taste." Dorothy managed to put in a week without even a hint as to the reason for her coming. She succeeded in spoiling New Year's Eve for everybody except Valerie, who went to a children's party at Shirley's, slipping out when her aunt had gone to her room after dinner, and feeling excitedly like a conspirator. Lucy went into the library, after seeing her safely on her way with Catlet. Mark was reading, and jumped up to put her in a big chair by the fire. "That's the very one you sat in the first night you landed. Do you remember?" Would she ever forget? "Here's a perfectly good celebration cele-bration gone to the dogs," he added. Dorothy came in just then, so Lucy said good night, and went to her room. If Dorothy was waiting wait-ing for a good chance to talk to Mark, it was only fair to give it to her. She was quite sure by now that Dorothy was her enemy. She felt a growing conviction that she was the reason for Dorothy's presence. pres-ence. She and Valerie went back to their lessons the day after New Year's. For those hours at least, they were free. Mark took Valerie to the den- tist's the next morning, which seemed to Dorothy an answer to a prayer. She was fresh from her day with Elise, and worked up to an increased state of righteous indignation. If her sister's child was not freed from the influence of a creature like the Tredway girl before another twenty-four hours, she assured Elise, it would be because there was no more decency de-cency in the world. Lucy was in her own sitting room when Dorothy knocked. Lucy got up courteously, although al-though she could see even now that courtesy was not going to play much part in the conversation. conversa-tion. "Will you sit down?" she asked. Dorothy came in and closed the door. "Isn't it a nice morning," said Lucy presently. There seemed a need for speech of some sort. "I was so glad when I saw the sun. A dentist seems easier to bear somehow when it's bright, don't you think?" Dorothy stared at her for a moment without answering. "I won't pretend that this is a social call," she said at last. If she expected Lucy to question ques-tion her further, she was disappointed. disap-pointed. The girl merely went on with her darning. "You were unknown to this house on my last visit," Dorothy said. "Or at least, I suppose you were. You established yourself after I had gone back to" my own responsibilities. You probably are aware that I was here to bury my sister. Seven short months ago!" "Nine, wasn't it?" Lucy asked cheerfully. "Almost a year ago. Time does fly.." There was . no answer. She added, "She must have been very lovely." "What my sister was doesn't enter en-ter into this discussion. I'm going go-ing to speak plainly. Miss Tredway, Tred-way, because I have a duty here. Also because there is no one else to do it. Would you care to tell me just when and where my brother-in-law found you?" Lucy started. "Found" was such a terribly accurate description! "Judge Brown of Allington, and Mr. Barrows, president of the Melton Bank, recommended me," she said. "They were old friends of my father." "When?" asked Dorothy. "I It was wonderful what a difference differ-ence nine months and a little money had made in Dorothy. She had managed to put on a little flesh, and had lightened her mourning to pale grays and mauves which softened her righteous right-eous angularity amazingly. She even chatted with them in a sort of fictitious gaiety, which somehow some-how made them strangely uneasy. un-easy. "I didn't suppose I could tear you away to visit me," she said coyly fo Valerie, "so what could I do but come to you?" "Oh, no!" cried Valerie. "I couldn't possibly leave." Her own dismay struck her ears so rudely that she hurried to repair it. "You see there are my lessons. We have school every day. It's very important. And, of course, there are the parties a few " Dorothy grabbed that. "Parties?" "Par-ties?" she repeated. Lucy thought she could hardly have looked more shocked if the child had confessed to arson. She bit her lips to keep from rushing to Valerie's rescue. She looked quickly at Mark. But Mark had already leaped into action. "Just some children's affairs," he explained amiably. she put it to herself. Deep in her heart she realized she had never had him to lose. The first thing ' to do was to keep him from mar rying Lucy. It should not be dif- j i'icult. j She lay there planning until a faint streak of yellow dawn lay like a brush across the sky beyond I her window. Then she got up, j shivering a little, pulled her negli gee closer, sat down at her desk, and began a long letter to Dorothy. Doro-thy. Looking back on that Christmas at Wide Acres, Lucy decided it was her final glimpse of heaven. It was far from traditional Christmas Christ-mas weather. Except for one light snowfall, the days were crisp and clear with a warm mid-day sun. If it had to be winter, which she despised, Valerie said, It could hardly be improved. Although the leaves were gone, the place wore almost a summery green. There was an enormous planting of ever-' ever-' greens and pines about it, with masses of rhododendrons, glossy and sleek against the bare trees. No Christmas could have had a more perfect setting. Valerie went to a small party the night before; and Mark and |