ation. "You are in a thoroughly
unwholesome state of mind," he said.

Romayne laughed recklessly. "When was I ever in a healthy state of
mind?" he asked.

Penrose passed the interruption over without notice. "If I am to do you
any good," he resumed, "I must know what is really the matter with you.
The very last question that I ought to put, and that I wish to put, is
the question which you force me to ask."

"What is it?"

"When you speak of your married life," said Penrose, "your tone is the
tone of a disappointed man. Have you any serious reason to complain of
Mrs. Romayne?"

(Stella rose to her feet, in her eagerness to hear what her husband's
answer would be.)

"Serious reason?" Romayne repeated. "How can such an idea have entered
your head? I only complain of irritating trifles now and then. Even the
best of women is not perfect. It's hard to expect it from any of them."

(The interpretation of this reply depended entirely on the tone in which
it was spoken. What was the animating spirit in this case? Irony or
Indulgence? Stella was ignorant of the indirect methods of irritation,
by means of which Father Benwell had encouraged Romayne's doubts of
his wife's motive for the reception of Winterfield. Her husband's tone,
expressing this state of mind, was new to her. She sat down again,
divided between hope and fear, waiting to hear more. The next words,
spoken by Penrose, astounded her. The priest, the Jesuit, the wily
spiritual intruder between man and wife, actually took the wife's side!)

"Romayne," he proceeded quietly, "I want you to be happy."

"How am I to be happy?"

"I will try and tell you. I believe your wife to be a good woman. I
believe she loves you. There is something in her face that speaks for
her--even to an inexperienced person like myself. Don't be impatient
with her! Put away from you that besetting temptation to speak in
irony--it is so easy to take that tone, and sometimes so cruel. I am
only a looker-on, I know. Domestic happiness can never be the
happiness of _my_ life. But I have observed my fellow-creatures of all
degrees--and this, I tell you, is the result. The largest number of
happy men are the husbands and fathers. Yes; I admit that they have
terrible anxieties--but they are fortified by unfailing compensations
and encouragements. Only the other day I met with a man who had suffered
the loss of fortune and, worse still, the loss of health. He endured
those afflictions so ca