e. I'm not riding till four."

So I left my pony standing at the front gate and Evelyn and I strolled
about the grounds.

"Money isn't the whole trouble," said Evelyn presently. "I know that.
Something even more serious has gone terribly wrong. And I want to
help."

"Won't they work it out best by themselves?" I suggested.

"Sometimes," she said, "it seems almost as if they had quarreled.
Sometimes John looks at her--Oh, as if he was going to die and was
looking at her for the last time. Could he have something serious the
matter with him?"

"He could, of course, but it doesn't seem likely."

"He doesn't _look_ well."

"True."

"Look here, Archie, don't you know what's wrong?"

"I wish I did," said I. "If I could right it."

As a matter of fact I didn't know what was wrong. I knew only that
Lucy no longer loved her husband. But why she no longer loved him was
the real trouble, and she had not told me that, even if she knew It
herself. But wishing to strengthen my answer, I said: "You're the one
who ought to know what's wrong. You're on the spot. And besides,
you're a woman and a woman is supposed to have three intuitions to a
man's one."

Evelyn ignored this.

"Sometimes," she said, "John's so gentle and pathetic that I want to
cry. Sometimes he is cantankerous and flies into rages about trifles.
It's getting on my nerves."

"Why not pack up your duds and move on?"

"Oh, because----"

I laughed maliciously. "We might move on together," I suggested.

"_You_ were going to move on," she said, "but you have stayed. I
wonder why?"

I did not enlighten her.

"If," she said presently, "people find out that things in this house
are at sixes and sevens I wonder if they won't find fault with you and
Lucy? Has that occurred to you?"

"It has occurred to you," I said, "to my own mamma and doubtless to
other connections. But it hasn't occurred to me. We see too much of
each other?"

"Altogether."

"You really think that?"

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders. "For appearance' sake, yes," she said.
"Of course you do. But it's my opinion that if you'd been going to get
sentimental about each other you'd have done it long ago."

"Evelyn," I said, "I've never made trouble in a family."

"Is that because of your natural virtue or because you have never
wanted to?"

"A little of both, I think. People fall in love at first sight. That
can't be helped. Or they fall in love very quickly, and