a farthing—­though in good circumstances, I hear.  This is all very disagreeable, and I don’t like to talk about it, but as I hear Piers Otway has been seeing you, it’s better you should know.”  She added “very kind regards,” and signed herself “yours affectionately.”  Then came a postscript.  “Mrs. A. Otway is actually on the music-hall stage herself, in short skirts!”

The paper shook in Irene’s hand.  She turned sick with fear and misery.

Mechanically the other letter was torn open.  Dr. Derwent wrote about Eustace’s engagement.  It did not exactly surprise him; he had observed significant things.  Nor did it exactly displease him, for since talking with Eustace and with Marian Jacks (the widow), he suspected that the match was remarkable for its fitness.  Mrs. Jacks had a large fortune—­well, one could resign oneself to that.  “After all, Mam’zelle Wren, there’s nothing to be uneasy about.  Arnold Jacks is sure to marry very soon (a dowager duchess, I should say), and on that score there’ll be no awkwardness.  When the Wren makes a nest for herself, I shall convert this house into a big laboratory, and be at home only to bacteria.”

But the Doctor, too, had a postscriptum.  “Olga has been writing to me, sheer scandal, something about the letters you wot of having been obtained in a dishonest way.  I won’t say I believe it, or that I disbelieve it.  I mention the thing only to suggest that perhaps I was right in not making any acknowledgment of that obligation.  I felt that silence was the wise as well as the dignified thing—­ though someone disagreed with me.”

When Irene entered the sitting-room, her friend had long since breakfasted.

“What’s the matter?” Helen asked, seeing so pale and troubled a countenance.

“Nothing much; I overtired myself yesterday.  I must keep quiet for a little.”

Mrs. Borisoff herself was in no talkative frame of mind.  She, too, an observer might have imagined, had some care or worry.  The two very soon parted; Irene going back to her room, Helen out into the sunshine.

A malicious letter this of Olga’s; the kind of letter which Irene had not thought her capable of penning.  Could there be any substantial reason for such hostile feeling?  Oh, how one’s mind opened itself to dark suspicion, when once an evil whisper had been admitted!

She would not believe that story of duplicity, of baseness.  Her very soul rejected it, declared it impossible, the basest calumny.  Yet how it hurt!  How it humiliated!  Chiefly, perhaps, because of the evil art with which Olga had reminded her of Piers Otway’s disreputable kinsmen.  Could the two elder brothers be so worthless, and the younger an honest, brave man, a man without reproach—­her ideal?