cently worn by the young husband
in his home. So, this was the ghastly explanation of the change: The man
was a bigamist! The distraught woman had hardly ears for the words her
niece was speaking.

"Yes," Cicily said, after a long, mournful pause, "besides me, Charles
has married--" She paused, one foot in a dainty satin slipper beating
angrily on the white fur of the rug.

"What woman?" Mrs. Delancy demanded, with wrathful curiosity.

"Oh, a factory full of them!" The young wife spoke the accusation with a
world of bitterness in her voice.

"Good gracious, what an extraordinary man!" Mrs. Delancy, under the
stimulus of this outrageous guilt again sat erect in her chair. Once
more, the flush showed daintily in the withered cheeks; but, now, there
was no hint of tenderness in the rose--it was the red of anger. "I know
how you must feel, dear," she said, gently. "I was jealous once, of one
woman. But to be jealous of a factory full--oh, Lord!"

"Yes," Cicily declared, in tremulous tones, "all of them, and the men
besides!"

Mrs. Delancy bounced from her seat, then slowly subsided into the depths
of the easy chair, whence she fairly gaped at her former ward. When,
finally, she spoke, it was slowly, with full conviction.

"Cicily, you're crazy!"

"No," the girl protested, sadly; "only heartbroken. I am so miserable
that I wish I were dead!"

"But, my dear," Mrs. Delancy argued, "it can't be that you are
quite--er--sensible, you know."

"Of course, I'm not sensible," Cicily admitted, petulantly. "I said I
was jealous, didn't I? Naturally, I can't be sensible."

"But Charles can't be married to the men, too!" Mrs. Delancy asserted,
wonderingly.

At that, Cicily flared in a burst of genuine anger.

"Yes, he is, too," she stormed; "and to the women, too--to the
buildings, to the machinery, to the nasty ground, to the
fire-escapes--to every single thing about that horrid business of his!
Oh, I hate it! I hate it! I hate every one of them!... And he is a
bigamist, I tell you--yes, a bigamist! He's married to me and to his
business, too, and he cares more for his business!"

"Humph!" The exclamation came from Mrs. Delancy with much energy. It was
surcharged, with relief, for the tragedy was made clear to her at last.
Surely, there was room for trouble in the situation, but nothing like
that over which she had shuddered during the period of her
misapprehension. In the first minute of relief, she felt aroused to
i