on with some sophistries that restored him to
his self-righteousness.

"I suppose you think he has interfered with Stoller's political
ambition, and injured him in that way. Well, what if he has? Would it be
a good thing to have a man like that succeed in politics? You're always
saying that the low character of our politicians is the ruin of the
country; and I'm sure," she added, with a prodigious leap over all the
sequences, "that Mr. Stoller is acting nobly; and it's your duty to help
him relieve Burnamy's mind." At the laugh he broke into she hastened to
say, "Or if you won't, I hope you'll not object to my doing so, for I
shall, anyway!"

She rose as if she were going to begin at once, in spite of his
laughing; and in fact she had already a plan for coming to Stoller's
assistance by getting at Burnamy through Miss Triscoe, whom she
suspected of knowing where he was. There had been no chance for them
to speak of him either that morning or the evening before, and after
a great deal of controversy with herself in her husband's presence she
decided to wait till they came naturally together the next morning for
the walk to the Capuchin Church on the hill beyond the river, which
they had agreed to take. She could not keep from writing a note to
Miss Triscoe begging her to be sure to come, and hinting that she had
something very important to speak of.

She was not sure but she had been rather silly to do this, but when they
met the girl confessed that she had thought of giving up the walk, and
might not have come except for Mrs. March's note. She had come with
Rose, and had left him below with March; Mrs. Adding was coming later
with Kenby and General Triscoe.

Mrs. March lost no time in telling her the great news; and if she had
been in doubt before of the girl's feeling for Burnamy she was now in
none. She had the pleasure of seeing her flush with hope, and then the
pain which was also a pleasure, of seeing her blanch with dismay.

"I don't know where he is, Mrs. March. I haven't heard a word from him
since that night in Carlsbad. I expected--I didn't know but you--"

Mrs. March shook her head. She treated the fact skillfully as something
to be regretted simply because it would be such a relief to Burnamy to
know how Mr. Stoller now felt. Of course they could reach him somehow;
you could always get letters to people in Europe, in the end; and,
in fact, it was altogether probable that he was that very instant in
W