"You poor baby!" consoled Marjorie, tenderly. "But where is Connie, dear?"
"She's upstairs. I'll call her."
He limped across the room to the stair door, which was situated at one side of the living-room, and opened it. "Connie," he called, "Marjorie's come to see us."
There was a sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and Constance appeared. "I didn't know you were here," she apologized.
"Where were you on Thursday?" began Marjorie, laughingly. "You promised to come over. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," returned Constance, briefly. Then with a swift return of the old, chilling reserve, which of late she had seemed to lose, "It was impossible for me to come."
Marjorie scrutinized her friend's face. The look of impassivity had come back to it. "What is the matter, Constance?" she questioned anxiously. "Has anything happened?"
An expression of intense pain leaped into Constance's blue eyes. "I've something to tell you, Marjorie. It's dreadful. I——" With a muffled sob she threw herself, face down, upon the old velvet couch, her slender shoulders shaking with passionate grief.
"Why, Constance!" Marjorie regarded the sobbing girl in sympathetic amazement.
Charlie went over to the couch and patted Constance's fair head. "Don't cry, Connie," he pleaded. Then, limping to a dilapidated writing desk in the corner, which Marjorie never remembered to have seen open before, he took from one of the lower pigeonholes a small, glittering object.