s hand, and smiled pleasantly, and left us.

"There, father!" says Felicia. "For the last ten days he has gone
out like that, and left me alone for the whole evening. When we first
returned from Switzerland, he left me in the same mysterious way, only
it was after breakfast then. Now he stays at home in the daytime, and
goes out at night."

I inquired if she had not summoned him to give her some explanation.

"I don't know what to make of his explanation," says Felicia. "When he
went away in the daytime, he told me he had business in the City. Since
he took to going out at night, he says he goes to his club."

"Have you asked where his club is, my dear?"

"He says it's in Pall Mall. There are dozens of clubs in that
street--and he has never told me the name of _his_ club. I am completely
shut out of his confidence. Would you believe it, father? he has not
introduced one of his friends to me since we came home. I doubt if they
know where he lives, since he took this house."

What could I say?

I said nothing, and looked round the room. It was fitted up with
perfectly palatial magnificence. I am an ignorant man in matters of this
sort, and partly to satisfy my curiosity, partly to change the
subject, I asked to see the house. Mercy preserve us, the same grandeur
everywhere! I wondered if even such an income as eight hundred a year
could suffice for it all. In a moment when I was considering this,
a truly frightful suspicion crossed my mind. Did these mysterious
absences, taken in connection with the unbridled luxury that surrounded
us, mean that my son-in-law was a gamester? a shameless shuffler of
cards, or a debauched bettor on horses? While I was still completely
overcome by my own previsions of evil, my daughter put her arm in mine
to take me to the top of the house.

For the first time I observed a bracelet of dazzling gems on her wrist.
"Not diamonds?" I said. She answered, with as much composure as if
she had been the wife of a nobleman, "Yes, diamonds--a present from
Marmaduke." This was too much for me; my previsions, so to speak, forced
their way into words. "Oh, my poor child!" I burst out, "I'm in mortal
fear that your husband's a gamester!"

She showed none of the horror I had anticipated; she only shook her head
and began to cry.

"Worse than that, I'm afraid," she said.

I was petrified; my tongue refused its office, when I would fain have
asked her what she meant. Her besetting sin, poor soul,