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me like that? How dare you? You coward! You're thinking—you're thinking—I know what you're thinking of. You cannot deny it. I defy you to deny it."

To his early start of surprise succeeded in Gregory's face a cold disapproval.

"I do not understand you," he said in a chilling voice. "You are singularly hysterical. I cannot pretend to follow you."

She laughed harshly, and struck the notes in a discord.

"Don't you? I have less difficulty in following you," she replied, with suppressed scorn. She played a bar or two. "I will not be used to recover your memories of the dead."

A flush sprang in Gregory's cheeks. "What do you mean?" he asked angrily.

"You understand quite well," she replied with passionate deliberation, smoothing her cuffs with studied calm. "It was an excellent thought to make me fill the place of that—that woman. Men must condescend to makeshifts and stopgaps. But now that I know, it is another matter. I have no intention of supporting the memory, or of filling the post of—what was her name, by the way?" she inquired with some exultation.

Gregory shuddered. He had been hurried into such rude and abrupt emotions. As he considered her, Marion appeared to him at this moment vulgar, clamant, almost as a shrieking shrew with hands to her hips. And he had been roused from a meditation of sorrowful sweetness to confront this. He had been moving freely among the tender memories of Dorothea, and the music had assisted his mood. This strident outbreak irritated him, and he frowned.

"You—you drive me beyond endurance," he cried, in a lower voice and with a gesture of despair.

Marion laughed. "Oh, I daresay," she said, being herselfindeed