versally pleasant that of course his
_fiancee_ came in for her share. So did Lady Emily, suffused with hope,
which made her pinker than ever; she told me he sent flowers even to
her. One day in the Park, I was riding early; the Row was almost empty.
I came up behind a lady and gentleman who were walking their horses,
close to each other, side by side In a moment I recognized her, but not
before seeing that nothing could have been more benevolent than the way
Ambrose Tester was bending over his future wife. If he struck me as a
lover at that moment, of course he struck her so. But that is n't the
way they ride to-day.

IV.

One day, about the end of June, he came in to see me when I had two
or three other visitors; you know that even at that season I am almost
always at home from six to seven. He had not been three minutes in the
room before I saw that he was different,--different from what he
had been the last time, and I guessed that something had happened in
relation to his marriage. My visitors did n't, unfortunately, and they
stayed and stayed until I was afraid he would have to go away without
telling me what, I was sure, he had come for. But he sat them out; I
think that by exception they did n't find him pleasant. After we were
alone he abused them a little, and then he said, "Have you heard about
Vandeleur? He 's very ill. She's awfully anxious." I had n't heard, and
I told him so, asking a question or two; then my inquiries ceased,
my breath almost failed me, for I had become aware of something very
strange. The way he looked at me when he told me his news was a full
confession,--a confession so full that I had needed a moment to take it
in. He was not too strong a man to be taken by surprise,--not so strong
but that in the presence of an unexpected occasion his first movement
was to look about for a little help. I venture to call it help, the sort
of thing he came to me for on that summer afternoon. It is always help
when a woman who is not an idiot lets an embarrassed man take up her
time. If he too is not an idiot, that does n't diminish the service; on
the contrary his superiority to the average helps him to profit. Ambrose
Tester had said to me more than once, in the past, that he was capable
of telling me things, because I was an American, that he would n't
confide to his own people. He had proved it before this, as I have
hinted, and I must say that being an American, with him, was sometimes a
qu