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can't,"she said, with the finality of helplessness.
    The rain had stopped, and through a sudden break in the clouds the watery

    sunshine streamed across the garden. Veronica sat down on an ottoman facing the window, and Penelope knelt beside her, looking at her pitifully.
    The long, pale oval of her face was maried and puckered by emotion, fair hair lay in streaks across her forehead, her clothes were glistening from the rain. Many tears had worn their mournful rivulets through the lavish powder on her nose. Her gloved hands lay across her lap, in one was clutched a sheet of blue-grey notepaper. She would not look at Maurice, but turned pathetic eyes on Penelope and made appeal with soundless moving lips.
    "Veronica has had a letter from Victor,"said Penelope, slowly and distinctly."He releases her from her engagement. He says... he explains... He is not so blind as you both seem to have thought, and he has seen for some time that Veronica was not happy. He has noticed that she has been listless and preoccupied, and has interpreted her unhappiness—rightly! He is convinced, he says, that Veronica has ceased to care for him, but that she is too scrupulous, or not

    quite brave enough perhaps, to speak out and make an end of things herself. He knows that her affections are elsewhere, and he believes that he is doing the best thing he can for her by setting her free."
    Veronica had turned a little, and sat facing Maurice. Penelope saw the golden flicker of her lashes; the blue letter fluttered to the ground from between her writhing fingers.
    "The trousseau was all bought,"she faltered."The going-away dress came from Pam's this morning, just before I got that letter."
    Penelope could not speak; she felt utterly inadequate. Maurice shifted his position; and stood leaning up against the window-frame; with intensity of interest he turned his head and looked into the garden.
    "It's stopped raining,"he observed. Veronica did not move; but Penelope saw her eyes slide sideways; following his movements under drooping lids.
    "How do you know all this,"Maurice asked abruptly,"what Victor says and that, when you've had no time to read his letter?"
    "He wrote to me, too,"said Penelope.

    She heard her own voice, self-conscious and defiant.
    "To you! Why you?"
    "But we know each other—rather well. Since much longer than he's known Veronica. And, well, you see I'm her cousin. He thought I'd make things easier for her. Do the explaining as far as possible. Probably he thought I'd speak to you."
    She stealthily touched her pocket and smiled to feel the crisp thick letter-paper crackle beneath her hand. Then she wondered if the sound were audible to the others, and glanced guiltily from one to the other of them. But they sat there silent, embarrassed, heavily preoccupied, one on either side of her.
    "So now ,"she said with bright
    aggressiveness. She could have shaken them.
    "I do not think,"said Veronica, in a small determined voice,"that I am justified in accepting Victor's sacrifice."
    "He is extraordinarily generous,"said Maurice, without enthusiasm.
    "The loneliness,"went on Veronica, gazing wide-eyed down some terrible vista.

    "Picture it, Penelope, the disappointment and the blankness for him. I could never have loved him, but I would have been a good wife to him."(Her voice rose in a crescendo of surprise. She thought"How genuine I am!")"We—we had made so many plans,"she faltered; fumbled, found no handkerchief, and spread her hands before her face.
    Penelope gave a little gasp, half sympathetic. She was praying hard for tact.
    "Veronica,"she said,"I don't think you should let that stand between you and Maurice. You mustn't be too soft-hearted, dear. I don't thmk Victor's altogether unhappy. He's relieved, I know. You see, the last few weeks have been an awful strain for him, as well as—other people."
    "How do you know?"
    "He told me."
    "You've been discussing me. Oh, Penelope, this is intolerable!"
    "He had been talking to me;