his point Milly began to reproach her husband for failing to leave
her and his child with resources. "He ought to have made some sort of
provision for his family--every man should," she said to herself. There
was manifest injustice in this "man-made world," where a good wife could
be left penniless with a child to care for.

Milly always thought of herself as "a good wife," by which she meant
specifically that she had been a chaste and faithful wife. That was what
the phrase in its popular use meant, just as "a good woman" meant merely
"a pure woman." If any one had questioned Milly's virtue as a wife, she
would have felt outraged. If any one had said that she was a bad wife,
or at least an indifferent wife, she would have felt insulted. A girl
who gave herself to a man, lived with him for eight of her best years,
bore him a child and had been faithful to him in body, must be "a good
wife," and as such deserved a better fate of society than to be left
penniless. All her friends said it was a very hard situation.

* * * * *

These same friends were endeavoring to do their best for her, pricked by
sympathy with her evident need. If it had not been for a cheque for two
thousand dollars, which Clive Reinhard sent her, "in payment for your
husband's work on the new contract," Milly would soon have been without
a dollar in her purse. She took Reinhard's cheque thankfully, without
suspecting her right to it. Others might suspect. For there was no
contract, no illustrations made--nothing but the novelist's recognition
of a need. The cheque was merely one of the ways he took of squaring
himself with his world.

When Milly's women friends heard of it, they said with one
voice,--"Thank heaven! If Clive Reinhard would only marry Milly--he
ought to!"

Which merely meant that, as he was a rich bachelor who had amassed money
by exploiting the sentimental side of their sex, there would be a poetic
justice in his chivalrously stepping into the breach and looking after
his dead friend's helpless widow. It would make up for "the others,"
they said, and were enthusiastic over their sentimental plan.

"Milly would make a charming hostess in that big country place of
Clive's. It would give her a free hand. What Milly has always wanted is
a free hand--she has the ability. And Clive is getting pudgy and set. He
ought to marry--he's too dreadfully selfish and self-centred," etc.

Mrs. Montgomery Billman too