Helen looked into eyes that were troubled as she gazed into the mirror before her. “It might have been she! She might need money! Should I have called, after all?” Usually Helen could depend upon her first instinct in regard to such matters. Her first instinct had said, no. By the time Helen’s hair was rolled again in its soft knot at the back of her head, her eyes had lost their troubled look. Of what importance was money to a woman who was willing to pay for her child’s happiness with the child’s love if it menaced that happiness? And communication, even secret communication, would menace it. It was far safer that she, Helen herself, should remain in doubt as to Stella’s hiding-place. It was necessary to be so very honest with Laurel. Helen, too, must not know but that Stella was beyond call in some far country. She mustn’t allow herself even to look for the shadow again. She mustn’t tell anyone about it. Oh, Stella should not be defeated, if Helen could help it.

2

BUT OTHERS WERE not as protective of the shadow. That same evening, a few hundred miles away, in a dainty and exquisite drawing-room in Milhampton, Massachusetts, four women in dainty and exquisite gowns stood before an open fire, stirring black coffee with tiny gold spoons in tiny porcelain cups. Their motions were as dainty and exquisite as the room, as their gowns. So, too, were their voices and their accents.

They chatted lightly, inconsequentially, touching now one subject, now another, like humming-birds passing from one flower to another, whiling the time away in as amusing a manner as possible till the men should join them for bridge.

“Oh, yes,” sighed Phyllis, “one sees the name of Laurel Dallas in the New York society columns frequently now. The new Mrs. Dallas is doing her best for the child. I call it awfully decent.”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be difficult,” said Myrtle, “with her social position.”

“And the child is really very pretty,” Mrs. Kay Bird contributed. “That helps. There isn’t a suggestion of her mother in her.”

“How fortunate! What has become of that dreadful woman, anyhow?” asked Rosamond.

“Oh! Haven’t you heard, my dear?” Mrs. Kay Bird raised slim bare shoulders in surprise. “Myrtle, haven’t you told Rosamond you saw the poor thing in New York last time you were down?”

“I haven’t seen Rosamond. I returned only night before last.”

“Oh, well, tell her. Do. Prepare yourself for a choice bit, Rosamond.”

Rosamond placed her empty coffee-cup on the mantel and curled up cozily in a corner of the cushioned divan.

“Tell me first, please, about the divorce. You know I was in Europe all last year. I didn’t get a bit of the gossip, and there was no account of it in the papers sent me.”