IVSo the Kirbys disappeared from the world. Sometimes a newcomer at Margaret's club would ask about the great portrait that hung over the library fireplace—the portrait of a cold-eyed woman with beautiful pearls about her beautiful throat. Then the history of poor, dear Margaret Kirby would be reviewed—its triumphs, its glories, Margaret's brilliant marriage, her beauty, her wit. These only led to the final tragic scenes that had ended it all.
"And now she is grubbing away dear knows where!" her biographer would say carelessly. "Absolutely, they might as well be buried!"
But about seven years after the Kirbys' disappearance, it happened that four of Margaret's old intimates—the T. Illington Frarys and the Josiah Dunnings—were taking a little motor trip in the Dunnings' big car, through t
