The caller's eyes grew great. She rose and dived clumsily for her umbrella, which had again slipped under the chair.
"I can't," she cried, and scurried to the open door like a pelted dog. She would have run down the steps at once had not some tender thought arrested her. She turned to me trustfully and stammered, "He is at that hospital I said," as if, since I had dealt her no direct blow, I might be able to salve the news she brought from the general wreck of manners. And then Kitty's stiff pallor struck to her heart, and cried comfortingly across the distance, "I tell you, I haven't seen him for fifteen years." She faced about, pushed down her hat on her head, and ran down the steps to the gravel. "They won't understand!" we heard her sob.
For a long time we watched her as she went along the drive, her yellowish raincoat looking sick and bright in the sharp sunshine, her black plumes nodding like
