me that he had never taken the
least the least interest in your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! He
said he had not. He swore he had not,' said Mrs. Vansuythen.

The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a
little thin woman, with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood
up with a gasp.

'What was that you said?' asked Mrs. Boulte. 'Never mind that man. What
did Ted say to you? What did he say to you? What did he say to you?'

Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, overborne by the
trouble of her questioner.

'He said I can't remember exactly what he said but I understood him
to say that is But, really, Mrs. Boulte, isn't it rather a strange
question?'

'Will you tell me what he said?' repeated Mrs. Boulte. Even a tiger will
fly before a bear robbed of her whelps, and Mrs. Vansuythen was only
an ordinarily good woman. She began in a sort of desperation: 'Well, he
said that the never cared for you at all, and, of course, there was not
the least reason why he should have, and and that was all.'

'You said he swore he had not cared for me. Was that true?'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Vansuythen very softly.

Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where she stood, and then fell
forward fainting.

'What did I tell you?' said Boulte, as though the conversation had been
unbroken. 'You can see for yourself. She cares for him.' The light began
to break into his dull mind, and he went on, 'And what was he saying
to you?'

But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for explanations or impassioned
protestations, was kneeling over Mrs. Boulte.

'Oh, you brute!' she cried. 'Are all men like this? Help me to get her
into my room and her face is cut against the table. Oh, will you be
quiet, and help me to carry her? I hate you, and I hate Captain Kurrell.
Lift her up carefully, and now go! Go away!'

Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuythen's bedroom, and departed
before the storm of that lady's wrath and disgust, impenitent and
burning with jealousy. Kurrell had been making love to Mrs. Vansuythen
would do Vansuythen as great a wrong as he had done Boulte, who
caught himself considering whether Mrs. Vansuythen would faint if she
discovered that the man she loved had forsworn her.

In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell came cantering along the
road and pulled up with a cheery 'Good-mornin'. 'Been mashing Mrs.
Vansuythen as usual, eh? Bad thing for a sober, married man, that. What
will Mrs. Bo