have looked before
his servants! How they must have laughed to think that he was being so
deceived and taken in! Why, even the policeman who stood at point duty
outside must have known all about it!

Small wonder that Mr. Tapster felt extremely incensed; small wonder that
his heart, hardening, solidifying, expelled any feeling of pity provoked
by Flossy's sad and downcast appearance.

"I must request you," he said, in a voice which even to himself sounded
harsh and needlessly loud, "to give me up those keys which you hold in
your hand. You have no right to their possession, and I grieve to think
that you took advantage of my great distress of mind not to return them
with the things of which I sent you a list by my brother William. I
cannot believe"--and now Mr. Tapster lied as only the very truthful can
lie on occasion--"I cannot believe, I say, that you have taken advantage
of my having overlooked them, and that you have ever before to-night
forced yourself into this house! Still less can I believe that you have
taught our--_my_--children to deceive their father!"

Even when uttering his first sentence, he had noticed that there had
come over Flossy's face--which was thinner, if quite as pretty and
youthful-looking, as when he had last seen it--an expression of
obstinacy which he had once well known and always dreaded. It had been
Flossy's one poor weapon against her husband's superior sense and power
of getting his own way, and sometimes it had vanquished him in that fair
fight which is always being waged between the average husband and wife.

"You are right," she cried passionately. "I have not taught the children
to deceive you! I have never come into this house until I felt sure that
they were asleep and alone, though I've often wondered that they never
woke up and knew that their own mother was there! But more than once,
James, I've felt like going after that society which looks after badly
treated children--for the last nurse you had for them was so cruel! If
she hadn't left you soon I should have _had_ to do something! I used to
feel desperate when I saw her shake Baby in her pram; why, one day, in
the Inclosure, a lady spoke to her about it, and threatened to tell
her--her mistress----"

Flossy's voice sank to a shamed whisper. The tears were rolling down her
cheeks; she was speaking in angry gasps, and what she said actually made
James Tapster feel, what he knew full well he had no reason to feel,
ashame