"What! That my father committed suicide?"

"Yes," whispered Minnie. "I—I'm afraid it may be true!"

Minnie Webb's announcement affected her four hearers in four different ways. It shocked Viola—shocked her greatly, for she had, naturally, expected kindly sympathy and agreement from her friend.

Dr. Baird, who had involuntarily begun to twist his small mustache at the entrance of Miss Webb, looked at her in admiration of her good looks and because she upheld a theory to which he felt himself committed—a theory that Mr. Carwell was a plain out-and-out suicide.

Dr. Lambert was plainly indignant at the bald manner in which Minnie Webb made her statement, and at the same time he had pity for the ignorance of the lay mind that will pronounce judgment against the more cautious opinio. . . Read More