The judge hesitated for an instant, in which the smile left Breckon’s face.  “I believe that’s all right, Mr. Breckon,” he said.  “You’ll find Mrs. Kenton in our parlor,” and then the two men parted, with an “Oh, thank you!” from Breckon, who walked back towards the hotel, and left Kenton to ponder upon the German lady; as soon as he realized that she was not a barrel, the judge continued his walk along the promenade, feeling rather ashamed.

Mrs. Kenton had gone to Ellen’s room again when she had got the judge off upon his mission.  She rather flung in upon her.  “Oh, you are up!” she apologized to Ellen’s back.  The girl’s face was towards the glass, and she was tilting her head to get the effect of the hat on it, which she now took off.

“I suppose poppa’s gone to tell him,” she said, sitting tremulously down.

“Didn’t you want him to?” her mother asked, stricken a little at sight of her agitation.

“Yes, I wanted him to, but that doesn’t make it any easier.  It makes it harder.  Momma!”

“Well, Ellen?”

“You know you’ve got to tell him, first.”

“Tell him?” Mrs. Kenton repeated, but she knew what Ellen meant.

“About—­Mr. Bittridge.  All about it.  Every single thing.  About his kissing me that night.”

At the last demand Mrs. Kenton was visibly shaken in her invisible assent to the girl’s wish.  “Don’t you think, Ellen, that you had better tell him that—­some time?”

“No, now.  And you must tell him.  You let me go to the theatre with him.”  The faintest shadow of resentment clouded the girl’s face, but still Mrs. Kenton, thought she knew her own guilt, could not yield.

“Why, Ellen,” she pleaded, not without a reproachful sense of vulgarity in such a plea, “don’t you suppose he ever—­kissed any one?”

“That doesn’t concern me, momma,” said Ellen, without a trace of consciousness that she was saying anything uncommon.  “If you won’t tell him, then that ends it.  I won’t see him.”

“Oh, well!” her mother sighed.  “I will try to tell him.  But I’d rather be whipped.  I know he’ll laugh at me.”

“He won’t laugh at you,” said the girl, confidently, almost comfortingly.  “I want him to know everything before I meet him.  I don’t want to have a single thing on my mind.  I don’t want to think of myself!”

Mrs. Kenton understood the woman—­soul that spoke in these words.  “Well,” she said, with a deep, long breath, “be ready, then.”

But she felt the burden which had been put upon her to be so much more than she could bear that when she found her husband in their parlor she instantly resolved to cast it upon him.  He stood at the window with his hat on.

“Has Breckon been here yet?” he asked.

“Have you seen him yet?” she returned.

“Yes, and I thought he was coming right here.  But perhaps he stopped to screw his courage up.  He only knew how little it needed with us!”