"Not Susan," sobbed Ruth. "He wants to see only her."

The members of the Second Presbyterian Church, of which Fanny
Warham was about the most exemplary and assiduous female member,
would hardly have recognized the face encircled by that triple
row of curl-papered locks, shinily plastered with quince-seed
liquor. She was at woman's second critical age, and the strange
emotions working in her mind--of whose disorder no one had an
inkling--were upon the surface now. She ventured this freedom of
facial expression because her daughter's face was hid. She did
not speak. She laid a tender defending hand for an instant upon
her daughter's shoulder--like the caress of love and
encouragement the lioness gives her cub as she is about to give
battle for it. Then she left the room. She did not know what to
do, but she knew she must and would do something.



CHAPTER III


THE telephone was downstairs, in the rear end of the hall which
divided the lower floor into two equal parts. But hardly had
Mrs. Warham given the Sinclairs' number to the exchange girl
when Ruth called from the head of the stairs:

"What're you doing there, mamma?"

"I'll tell Mrs. Sinclair you're sick and can't come. Then I'll