“Oh, look at it—­look at it, Alix!” Cherry burst forth.  “Do decent men have letters like that sent to their wives?  Is it probable that a good man would do anything to rouse some busybody woman to write such a letter about him?”

“Well, but who is she, and what do you suppose she wrote it for?” Alix wondered.

“Oh, I don’t know.  She got mad at him, perhaps.  Or perhaps she is a champion of this Woods woman.  They had some quarrel—­how do I know?  But you can see that she is mad, and this is the way she gets even!”

“Cherry, at least do Martin the justice to ask him about it!” Alix pleaded, really frightened now.

Her sister seemed not to hear her.  She stopped her angry pacing, and sat down at the table, and the misery in her beautiful eyes made Alix’s heart sink.

“And that,” Cherry said in a whisper, “is my husband!”

She paused, staring down at the table, one hand supporting her forehead, the other wandering idly among the breakfast things.  Her look was sombre and far away.  Alix, standing, watched her distressedly, through a long minute of silence.

“Well!” Cherry said lifelessly, looking up at her sister with dulled eyes.  “What now?  It’s still ‘for better or worse,’ I suppose?”

Alix sat down, and for a moment covered her face with a tight-pressed hand.  When she took it away, there was new serenity and resolution in her tired face.

“No,” she said, with a great sigh, “I think perhaps you’re right!  He hasn’t—­he should have no claim on you now!”

“Alix,” Cherry demanded, “would you forgive him?”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t,” Alix said, after thought.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t!” Cherry echoed, incredulously.

“Well, I’m not very good,” Alix said, hesitatingly.  “But a vow is a vow, you know.  If it was limited, then my—­my fulfillment of it would be limited, I suppose.  Of course,” she added, honestly, “I’m talking for myself only!”

“And you would quietly forgive and forget!” demanded the little sister, in bitter scorn.

“I say I hope I would!” Alix corrected her.  “Even if this is true”—­she added, with a glance at the lavender letter—­“still, I suppose the rule of forgiving seventy times seven times—­”

Cherry interrupted her with a burst of bitter and rebellious weeping.

“Oh, my God, what shall I do!” she sobbed, with her bright head dropped on her arm.  Alix saw Kow come to the door, look at them speculatively, and disappear, and thought in her shaken soul that things in a household were demoralized indeed when pretense before the servants was no longer maintained.

“Don’t cry, Cherry, Cherry!” she said, her own tears brimming over.  She came to kneel beside her sister, and they locked their arms about each other, and their wet cheeks touched.  “Don’t cry, dear!” she said, tenderly.  “It’ll all come straight, somehow, and we’ll wonder why we took it so hard!”