r less some one to help her bear up her end. And I can't say how
she will take the fact of only us two."

The Duchess interrupted cheerfully:

"Why, she, of course, will go directly back! You don't think for a
second that she would stop on alone like that?"

"Alone?" Bulstrode gave her with a little malice. "But she'll have
Westboro' and me so entirely to herself and one can always ask in the
rector or curate or corral a neighbor."

But the Duchess shook her head as if she understood. "Oh, no, not at
this time."

Bulstrode miscomprehended blithely: "Christmas time? You see, I know
the visiting lady pretty well, and I believe she'll feel me to be more
or less of a standby, and I know her spirit and her human kindness. I
am inclined to think that she will feel it's up to her not to run off
like a hare; to think that Westboro' may, in a way, need her; and that
when she finds everybody's gone back on the poor man, and there's to be
no tree after all, why, I'm tempted, by jove, to think----"

The Duchess helped him: "That she'll make a charity of it."

"Yes, if you like," he laughed. "Or be a sport," he preferred to put
it. "Stay on, stand by. It will be perfectly ripping of her, you
know."

But the Duchess had no sympathy for the other woman. Her eyes fixed
themselves on the trees before her, and as a shot rang out in the
distance she said abruptly: "Why, that might be Cecil, mightn't it?
Does he shoot birds on your premises?"

Bulstrode wondered very much for what reason she was habited in street
dress and furs, whether she had planned to leave The Dials or had
intended going up to see her husband.

"Forgive me," he said, "if I seem to be shockingly in a hurry, but I
must have a look at the time, for as it happens, even in this far-off
place, I have an engagement."

Impulsively putting out her hand the Duchess exclaimed: "I can't ever,
ever thank you."

"Oh, after your divorce----"

But she cried out so against his words that he hastened: "You want me
to think then that you do not believe...."

"Believe!" she ardently repeated, "Oh, I don't know what I believe or
think," and he saw that the poor thing spoke the truth. "It's I who am
as unstable as the sea, I who am the derelict."

He contradicted her gently: "My dear, you're only trying to solve alone
a problem which it takes two to answer. When you see Westboro' you
will know."

She turned on him with the first sparkle of humor he had ever