“It is poor Meredith’s business,” friend after friend decided.  Where little was known, much was suspected.  “The Fletchers cannot easily brook that sort of thing.”

Just what that “sort” was depended upon the temperament and character of the person speaking.

Then among the first to call after Doris’s return was Mrs. Tweksbury, an old and valued family friend, a woman who was worth one’s while to gain as friend, for she could be a desperate foe.  She had formed all her opinions of Meredith Thornton’s tragedy upon what she knew and loved concerning the girl, and what she knew nothing whatever about, concerning Thornton.

To Mrs. Tweksbury he was a black villain who had murdered—­there was no other word for it—­an innocent young creature who belonged to that class (Mrs. Tweksbury was frank and clear about “class”) not supposed to be subject to the coarser dealings of life.

Mrs. Tweksbury relied absolutely upon what she termed her inherited intuition.  This was quite outside feminine intuition.  The Tweksbury male intellect had been judicial from the first, and “the constant necessity of knowing men and women,” as Mrs. Tweksbury often explained, “had left its mark upon the family.”

“We know! That is all there is to say.  We know!”

So Mrs. Tweksbury “knew” all about everything when she folded Doris in her motherly arms.

“There is no need of a word, my dear,” she said, “and you are dealing with the whole thing superbly.  Let me see the children.  How fortunate that they are twins and girls!  Girls may inherit from the father, but thank God! nature saves them from the developing along his line.  And being twins certainly modifies what might otherwise be concentrated.”

Doris felt her heart beat fast.  She was not prepared to confide in Mrs. Tweksbury, certainly not at present.  She loved the old woman for her good qualities, but she shrank from putting herself at the mercy of Mrs. Tweksbury’s “inherited intuitions!”

So she said nothing, but sent for the children.

Hidden deep in the old woman’s heart were all the denied and suppressed yearnings of a love that had escaped fulfilment—­a love that had entered in after her marriage to a man utterly without sympathy with her, but which had been rigidly ignored because of the stern moral fibre that marked her.  After the death of all those who had been concerned in her secret romance she had taken upon herself the more or less vicarious guardianship of the son of the man she had loved and foregone.

The boy lived with his mother’s people, and Mrs. Tweksbury only visited him occasionally; but her proud, stern old heart knew only one undying passion now—­her passion for children.

When Nancy and Joan stood before her, she regarded them with almost tragic, and, at the same time, comic expression.  The children were frightened at her twitching, wrinkled face and glanced at Doris, who smiled them into calmness.