satin damask. One such chair had been saved from the wreck--the one at
the end of the strip of carpet.

Day by day and month by month the years passed. The frail little woman
walked the Axminster path and sat in the tufted chair. For her there
were a china cup and plate, and a cook and maids below to serve. For her
the endless sewing over which Katherine and Margaret bent their backs to
eke out their scanty income was a picture or a bit of embriodery,
designed to while away the time.

As Margaret thought of it it seemed incredible--this tissue of
fabrications that enmeshed them; but even as she wondered she knew that
the very years that marked its gradual growth made now its strength.

And in a little while would come the end--a very little while, the
doctor said.

Margaret tightened her lips and echoed her sister's words: "We mustn't
give up--we mustn't!"

Two days later the doctor called. He was a bit out of the old life.

His home, too, had been--and was now, for that matter--on the avenue. He
lived with his aunt, whose heir he was, and he was the only one outside
of the Whitmore family that knew the house of illusions in which Mrs.
Whitmore lived.

His visits to the little Harlem flat had long ceased to have more than a
semblance of being professional, and it was an open secret that he
wished to make Margaret his wife. Margaret said no, though with a