"What is the matter, Glavis?" she inquired, sitting up in bed again. Glavis shifted about uneasily before replying.

"Ah—why—Orlean, it's Baptiste, your husband."

"Jean!" she cried, forgetting everything but her husband—forgetting that she had allowed herself to be parted from him. "What—what is the matter with him, Glavis? With Jean? Has something happened? Oh, I'm always so afraid something will happen to Jean!"

"No, no," exclaimed Glavis, pushing her gently back upon the pillow. "Nothing has happened. Ah—er—ah—"

"Oh, I'm so relieved," she sighed, as she fell over in the bed.

"He's here—in the city," she heard then from Glavis.

"He is!" she cried, sitting suddenly erect again. For a moment she hesitated, and then, raising her hand to her forehead as if in great pain, she groaned perceptibly. The next moment she had again sunk back upon the pillow, and her breath came hard. Perspiration stood upon her brow, and he saw it.

"Orlean, oh, Orlean," he cried then upon impulse. "Great God, this is a shame, a shame before God!" he lamented with great emotion.

Suddenly he rushed to the door and then halted as he heard his wife calling him from below. He turned to where Orlean lay in the bed, sick now for true.

"Aren't you coming down to supper, Orlean?" he called.

"No, Glavis. I am not hungry."

"But you should eat something, Orlean."

"No, Glavis," she repeated in a tired voice, a voice in which he detected a sigh. "I couldn't eat anything—now." He looked at her a moment with great tenderness, let escape a sigh, and then as if resigned to the inevitable, he turned and passed down the stairway to where his wife waited below.

She regarded him keenly, and during the meal, she kept casting furtive glances in his direction. "I wonder what he's been saying to Orlean?" she kept muttering to herself. She concluded then, that she would have to watch him closely. He had never been in accord with her and her father's plan, and they had borne false witness to influence him against Baptiste. But he had seen Baptiste she knew, and was also aware of the fact that Glavis liked both her sister and brother-in-law, and it was going to be a task to keep him from following his natural inclination.

She thought about her father again, and wished that he was in Chicago.

She had never been delegated to handle such a task alone, and she disliked the immense responsibility that was now upon her, and no one to stand with her in the conflict.

"Well, Ethel," Glavis said, arising from the table when the meal was over, "I'm going to walk out for a while."

She started up quickly. Her lips parted to say that he was going to meet Baptiste and conspire with him against her father, but she realized that this would not be expedient. He might revolt. She rather feared this at times, notwithstanding her influence over him, therefore she decided to exercise a little diplomacy. Accordingly she sank back into the chair, and replied: