“Lying down in her room; but he isn’t a kid—­he’s my Knight.”

“All right; you may have him,” Alice answered, lightly, turning toward the door.

“Alice!”

The older girl turned.  “Well?” she interrogated.

“Is Mr. Covington a cat?”

“What do you mean?”

“Allen said to me the other day, ‘Listen to him purr.’”

“Allen ought to have his ears boxed.”

“No, he oughtn’t”—­but the door had slammed, and Patricia was alone with her Knights.

Alice tiptoed into Mrs. Gorham’s room, then started to withdraw as Eleanor appeared to be asleep, but the older woman stopped her.

“Come in, dear,” she said; “I am only resting.”

“Are you ill?” the girl asked, anxiously, all thought of her errand vanishing; “you were looking very tired at breakfast.”

“I did not sleep last night,” she replied, rising wearily from the bed, and pressing her hands against her temples as she sat down.  “I am so perplexed that I don’t know which way to turn.  I wonder if you could advise me, Alice?”

“If only I could be of help to you!” the girl exclaimed, drawing another chair close to Eleanor’s, and taking both her hands in her own.

Eleanor made no reply for several moments.  “I don’t know what to do,” she said simply at last.  “I want to have my life an open book to your father, yet in this one instance I can’t see my way clear.”

“Why, Eleanor!” cried the girl, surprised, “how can that be possible?”

“I don’t wonder you ask; that is the question I have set myself to answer.  I saw Ralph Buckner yesterday as I was driving up Fifth Avenue, and the sight of him filled me with apprehension.”

“Your first husband—­in New York?” Alice asked, surprised.

“Yes—­what can he be doing here?”

“You don’t know that it has anything to do with you, do you?”

“No; but I am so apprehensive that I imagine everything.”

“But the past is dead, Eleanor dear.  To have it recalled is of course painful, but why should you dread it?”

Mrs. Gorham did not answer at once, and the girl was amazed to witness the conflict of emotion which her face expressed.  At last Eleanor raised her eyes.

“The past is not wholly dead,” she said, in a low voice.  “That is the unfortunate part.  There is one event which happened back there in Colorado, right after Carina was killed, which has never—­can never be explained.  It is the only detail of that awful tragedy which I have not told your father, and I could not even tell you.”

“Can’t you tell me enough so I can really help you, Eleanor?”

“No, not even as much as that.  The appearances were all against me.  I know that nothing occurred of which I need feel ashamed, but the circumstantial evidence is so strong that it would be beyond human possibility to expect any one, even one as generous as your father, to accept my unsupported statement.”