"Apparently others have found him so," drawled the older lady, meaningly.
"What others?"
Mrs. Langham-Greene looked deliberately at Mrs. Hadwell and spoke, regretfully.
"I am afraid, dear Mrs. Hadwell, that your friend, Miss Thayer"——
"How dare you say so?"
"Estelle," said her husband, reprovingly, "is it likely that these ladies would speak without proper authority?"
"Very likely indeed," thought their hostess, but her heart was sick within her. Lynn's interest in Ricossia; her lack of interest in other men; her sorrow, her preoccupation, her confession of having outraged propriety; all these ranged as witnesses against her in her friend's heart.
"I knew—I told Mr. Hadwell that you would take it in just this way," murmured the widow, sympathetically. "So he insisted that we bring an eye-witness to convince you. Of course the thing has been going on for an indefinite space of time; but, just lately, Mr. and Mrs. Tollman, when returning home late one night, saw Miss Thayer leaving the Chatham. They followed her. She took a sleigh to Pine Avenue, dismissed it there and walked home. Isn't it so, Mrs. Tollman?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Tollman, fluttering. "It is undeniably true. But I don't know how it ever got out, for I only told my most intimate friends about it."
"That was cheaper than having it printed in the 'Daily News' and certainly quite as effective."