interference."

"I hope he will remember it."

"Do you know who furnished the money to pay Fred? He says he is sure
your father did not have it."

"Tell him to ask my father. He might even ask your father. Whether my
father had the money or not was immaterial. Father could borrow any sum
he wanted, I think."

"Whom did he borrow from?"

"I am sure that Fred told you to ask that question. Is he writing to
you, Dora?"

"Suppose he is?"

"I cannot suppose such a thing. It is too impossible."

This was the beginning of a series of events all more or less qualified
to bring about unspeakable misery in Basil's home. But there is nothing
in life like the marriage tie. The tugs it will bear and not break, the
wrongs it will look over, the chronic misunderstandings it will forgive,
make it one of the mysteries of humanity. It was not in a day or a week
that Basil Stanhope's dream of love and home was shattered. Dora had
frequent and then less frequent times of return to her better self; and
every such time renewed her husband's hope that she was merely passing
through a period of transition and assimilation, and that in the end she
would be all his desire hoped for.

But Ethel saw what he did not see, that Mostyn was gradually inspiring
her with his own opinions, perhaps even with his own passion. In
this emergency, however, she was gratified to find that Dora's mother
appeared to have grasped the situation. For if Dora went to the theater
with Mostyn, Mrs. Denning or Bryce was also there; and the reckless
auto driving, shopping, and lunching had at least a show of
respectable association. Yet when the opera season opened, the constant
companionship of Mostyn and Dora became entirely too remarkable, not
only in the public estimation, but in Basil's miserable conception of
his own wrong. The young husband used every art and persuasion--and
failed. And his failure was too apparent to be slighted. He became
feverish and nervous, and his friends read his misery in eyes heavy
with unshed tears, and in the wasting pallor caused by his sleepless,
sorrowful nights.

Dora also showed signs of the change so rapidly working on her. She was
sullen and passionate by turns; she complained bitterly to Ethel that
her youth and beauty had been wasted; that she was only nineteen, and
her life was over. She wanted to go to Paris, to get away from New York
anywhere and anyhow. She began to dislike even the presence of Basil.
His stat