her shoulders shake, and then I knew that she was crying.  I had never seen Lorraine cry before, and I felt dreadfully, but I didn’t know just what to do or what to say, and while I stood staring at her I noticed that there was a photograph on the table with a lot of faded flowers.  The face of the photograph was up and I saw that it was a picture of Mr. Wilde—­the one that usually stands on the mantel-piece.  Lorraine is always talking about him, and she has told me ever and ever so much about how nice and kind he was to her when she was studying art in New York.  But, of course, I didn’t know she cared enough for him to cry over his picture, and it gave me the queerest feelings to see her do it—­kind of wabbly ones in my legs, and strange, sinking ones in my stomach.  You see, I had just finished reading Lady Hermione’s Terrible Secret.  A girl at school lent it to me.  So when I saw Lorraine crying over a photograph and faded flowers I knew it must mean that she had learned to love Mr. Wilde with a love that was her doom, or would be if she didn’t hurry and get over it.  Finally I crept out of the house without saying a word to her or letting her know I was there, and I leaned on the gate to think it over and try to imagine what a girl in a book would do.  In Lady Hermione her sister discovered the truth and tried to save the rash woman from the sad consequences of her love, so I knew that was what I must do, but I didn’t know how to begin.  While I was standing there with my brain going round like one of Billy’s paper pinwheels some one stopped in front of me and said, “Hello, Alice,” in a sick kind of a way, like a boy beginning to recite a piece at school.  I looked up.  It was Harry Goward!

You’d better believe I was surprised, for, of course, when he went away nobody expected he would come back so soon; and after all the fuss and the red eyes and the mystery I hoped he wouldn’t come back at all.  But here he was in three days, so I said, very coldly, “How do you do, Mr. Goward,” and bowed in a distant way; and he took his hat off quickly and held it in his hand, and I waited for him to say something else.  All he did for a minute was to look over my head.  Then he said, in the same queer voice:  “Is Mrs. Peter in?  I wanted to have a little talk with her,” and he put his hand on the gate to open it.  I suppose it was dreadfully rude, but I stayed just where I was and said, very slowly, in icy tones, that he must kindly excuse my sister-in-law, as I was sure she wouldn’t be able to receive him.  Of course I knew she wouldn’t want him or any one else to come in and see her cry, and besides I never liked Harry Goward and I never expect to.  He looked very much surprised at first, and then his face got as red as a baby’s does when there’s a pin in it somewhere, and he asked if she was ill.  I said, “No, she is not ill,” and then I sighed and looked off down the street as if I would I were alone.  He began to speak very quickly, but stopped and bit his lip.  Then he turned away and hesitated, and finally he came back and took a thick letter from his pocket and held it out to me.  He was smiling now, and for a minute he really looked nice and sweet and friendly.