aps he has been delayed. These things always seem terrible in the
middle of the night, but by morning--"

Christine whirled on her.

"This isn't the first time. You remember the letter I got on my wedding
day?"

"Yes."

"He's gone back to her."

"Christine! Oh, I am sure you're wrong. He's devoted to you. I don't
believe it!"

"Believe it or not," said Christine doggedly, "that's exactly what has
happened. I got something out of that little rat of a Rosenfeld boy, and
the rest I know because I know Palmer. He's out with her to-night."

The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to
make a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious. But
vice had remained for her a clear abstraction. There were such people,
and because one was in the world for service one cared for them. Even
the Saviour had been kind to the woman of the streets.

But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world--that
because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked. Her young
spirit rose in hot rebellion.

"It isn't fair!" she cried. "It makes me hate all the men in the world.
Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!"

Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room. Mere companionship
had soothed her. She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than
Sidney.

"They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven," she said. "There are
decent men. My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is
another."

At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home. Christine met
him in the lower hall. He was rather pale, but entirely sober. She
confronted him in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.

"I am sorry to be so late, Chris," he said. "The fact is, I am all in. I
was driving the car out Seven Mile Run. We blew out a tire and the thing
turned over."

Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.

CHAPTER XVI

Young Howe had been firmly resolved to give up all his bachelor habits
with his wedding day. In his indolent, rather selfish way, he was much
in love with his wife.

But with the inevitable misunderstandings of the first months of
marriage had come a desire to be appreciated once again at his face
value. Grace had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed
to be. With Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now--all his small
indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on