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she asked herself, if she, Catherine Whipple, were directly instrumental in bringing about the reconciliation of that delightful author, James Harley, with his equally delightful wife? Might she not thus save a genius from disaster?

Sitting upon the bed she decided that it would, and that she might.

Her active old mind, as mischievous as a child’s, conceived a plan. She rose, and, with an injunction to Joan to play nicely for a little while, she went to her own room, which adjoined Grace Harley’s.

There, with an air of a conspirator, behind a locked door, she wrote a message to James Harley, Author, New Plymouth, upon the hotel stationery, signing herself “A Sincere Friend,” and fully believing it to be true.

She stole from the hotel to post it, walking on tiptoes to the stairs lest Joan should hear her.

She was away for over half-an-hour, for she held exaggerated ideas on the penalty which she would suffer were she detected in the act of posting an anyonymous letter, and it was some time before she had found a sufficiently deserted letter-box.

Joan met her on the stairs. The long silence had puzzled the child, who, failing to find her temporary guardian in her proper place, was descending to make enquiries.

“Where have you been?” demanded Joan, halting on the stairs and regarding Miss Whipple with suspicion.

The old lady felt and looked uncomfortably guilty.

“Just out for a breath of fresh air,” she lied, as she continied to mount the stairs slowly.

“What do you want fresh air for?”

Miss Whipple had not time in which to think of another lie, for at that moment the earth shook.

The huge building lifted bodily, as though some giant shoulder beneath it had given a violent heave, then it sank as suddenly; and the roar of falling masonry drowned the shriek with which Miss Whipple made her entry into the eternal shadows.