Estelle, the “black sheep” ever since she began to support them by engaging in trade, drew aloof now, was at home as little as she could contrive, often ate a cold supper in the back of her shop.  She said nothing to Lorry of the family shame; she simply drew nearer to him.  And out of this changed situation came, unconsciously to herself, a deep contempt for her father and her brother, a sense that she was indeed as alien as the Wilmots so often alleged, in scorn of her and her shop; Verbena’s income went to buy adornments for herself, dresses that would give the hands a fitting background; Estelle’s earnings went to her mother, who distributed them, the old gentleman and Arden ignoring whence and how the money came.

As Estelle and Lorry lingered on the porch of the Villa d’Orsay that August evening, alone in the universe under that vast, faintly luminous, late-twilight sky, Arden Wilmot came up the lawn.  Neither Lorry nor Estelle saw or heard him until his voice, rough with drink and passion, savagely stung them with, “What the hell does this mean?”

Lorry dropped Estelle’s hand and stood up, Estelle behind him, a restraining hand on his shoulder.  Both were white to the lips; their sky, the moment before so clear and still, was now black and thunderous with a frightful storm.  Estelle saw that her brother was far from sober; and the sight of his sister caressed by Lorry Tague would have maddened him even had he not touched liquor.  She darted between the two men.  “Don’t be a goose, Arden,” she panted, with a hysterical attempt to laugh.

“That fellow was touching you!” stormed Arden.  “You miserable disgrace!” And he lifted his hand threateningly to her.

Lorry put his arm round her and drew her back, himself advancing.  “You must be careful how you act toward the woman who is to be my wife, Mr. Wilmot,” he said, afire in all his blood of the man who has the right to demand of the whole world the justice he gives it.

Arden Wilmot stared dumfounded, first at Lorry, then at Estelle.  In the pause, Adelaide, drawn from the library by the sound of Arden’s fury, reached the front doorway, saw the three, instantly knew the whole cause of this sudden, harsh commotion.  With a twitch that was like the shaking off of a detaining grasp, with a roar like a mortally wounded beast’s, Arden recovered the use of limbs and voice.  “You infernal lump of dirt!” he yelled.  Adelaide saw his arm swing backward, then forward, and up—­saw something bright in his hand.  A flash—­“O God, God!” she moaned.  But she could not turn her eyes away or close them.

Lorry stood straight as a young sycamore for an instant, turned toward Estelle.  “Good-by—­my love!” he said softly, and fell, face downward, with his hands clasping the edge of her dress.

And Estelle—­

She made no sound.  Like a ghost, she knelt and took Lorry’s head in her lap; with one hand against each of his cheeks she turned his head.  “Lorry!  Lorry!” she murmured in a heartbreaking voice that carried far through the stillness.