not go on.
“Well?” said the old lady impatiently. “Did she see you?”
“No.” Sherrill’s voice was almost toneless. “No, but—”
“There, there, child! I know it’s hard, but it’s got to be told once, and then we’ll close it over forever if you say so.”
“Oh, I know,” said Sherrill, sitting up and taking up her tale with a little shudder that seemed to shake her whole slender self.
“No, she didn’t see me. She was looking at him. She went straight to him and began to talk, and I could see by his whole attitude that they were old friends. He was shocked when he saw her, and very angry. He ordered her out and scolded her, but she pled with him. It was really heartbreaking. Just as if he had been nothing to me. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, though I thought her—Oh, at first I thought her the lowest of the low. Then I recognized her as his secretary, and of course I guess I thought still less of her, because she would have known that he was engaged.”
“Yes, of course!” said Aunt Pat in a spritely tone. “Well, what else?”
“Well, she began pleading with him to go away with her. She reminded him that he had promised to marry her, and in his answer he acknowledged that he had, but oh, Aunt Pat! It is too dreadful to tell!”
“That’s all right, Sherrill; get it out of your system. No way to do that like telling it all, making a clean sweep of it! Besides, sometime you’ll want to look back on it and remember that you had the assent of someone else that you did the right thing. Even though you’re sure you’re right, there will come times when you will question yourself perhaps.”
“I know!” said Sherrill quickly with that sharp intake of breath that shows some thought has hurt. “I have already!” Her aunt gave her a sharp keen look.
“Poor kiddie!” she said gently.
“Oh, I know I never could have married him,” went on Sherrill heartbrokenly. “Only it is so dreadful to have my life all upset in one awful minute that way! To know in a flash that everything you’ve ever counted on and trusted in a person had no foundation whatever! That he simply wasn’t in the least what I had thought him. Why, Aunt Pat, he had the nerve to tell her that it didn’t matter if he was marrying someone else—that wouldn’t hinder their relation. He reminded her that after he got home from the wedding trip, he would spend far more time with her than with me, and that whenever he wanted to get away for a few days, it would be entirely possible! Oh, Aunt Pat—it was too dreadful! And I standing there not daring to breathe! Oh!” Sherrill put her face down in her hands and shook with suppressed sobs.
“The dirty little puppy!” said Aunt Pat, setting down her plate with a ring on the table. Then she got up from her big chair and came across to Sherrill, laying a frail roseleaf hand on her bowed head.
“You poor dear little girl!” she said tenderly, more tenderly than Sherrill had ever heard her speak before.
For a moment then the tears had full sway, let loose by the unusual gentleness of the old lady’s voice, till they threatened to engulf her. Then suddenly Sherrill lifted her face all wet with tears and drew Aunt Pat’s hand to her lips, kissing it again and again.
“Oh, Aunt Pat! It’s so wonderful of you to take it this way! You’ve done so much to make this a wonderful wedding, spent all this money, and then had it finish in a terrible scandal like this!”
“It’s not a scandal!” protested the old lady. “You carried if off like a thoroughbred, and nobody will ever know what happened. You were the bravest girl I ever knew. You are like your father, Sherrill.” Her tone was very gentle now, and soft. It hardly sounded like herself, and her sharp old eyes were misted with sweet tears. “And why wouldn’t I take it this way, I should like to know, when I was pleased to pieces at what had happened?”
Then suddenly she straightened up, marched back to her seat, and took up her plate again. Her eyes were snapping now, and her tone was far from gentle as she said, “But it was far too good a thing to happen to Carter McArthur. He ought to have been tarred