ernoon. I took the midnight express. Billy told Matilda he saw you
get aboard the 7.20 train It's all over Eastridge. We have been married
thirteen years, Maria, and I have always had occasion to trust your
judgment and good sense till now."

"That is precisely what I told her," ventured Dr. Denbigh.

"As for you, sir!" Tom Price turned, towering. "It is fortunate for YOU
that I find my wife in this darned shebang.--Any female policeman behind
that door-girl? Doctor? Why, Doctor! Say, DOCTOR! Dr. Denbigh! What in
thunder are you laughing at?"

The doctor's sense of humor (a quality for which I must admit my dear
husband is not so distinguished as he is for some more important traits)
had got the better of him. He put his hands in his pockets, threw
back his handsome head, and then and there, in that sacred feminine
vestibule, he laughed as no woman could laugh if she tried.

In the teeth of the door-girl, the clerk, and the proprietress, in the
face of the chin lady and the poodle girl, I ran straight to Tom and put
my arms around his neck. At first I was afraid he was going to push me
off, but he thought better of it. Then I cried out upon him as a woman
will when she has had a good scare. "Oh, Tom! Tom! Tom! You dear old
precious Tom! I told you all about it. I wrote you a note about Dr.
Denbigh and--and everything. You don't mean to say you never found it?"

"Where the deuce did you leave it?" demanded Thomas Price.

"Why, I stuck it on your pin-cushion! I pinned it there. I pinned it
down with two safety-pins. I was very particular to."

"PIN-CUSHION!" exploded Tom. "A message--an important message--to a
MAN--on a PIN-cushion!"

Then, with that admirable self-possession which has been the secret of
Tom Price's success in life, he immediately recovered himself. "Next
time, Maria," he observed, with pitying gentleness, "pin it on the
hen-coop. Or, paste it on the haymow with the mucilage-brush. Or, fasten
it to the watering-trough in the square--anywhere I might run across
it.--Doctor! I beg your pardon, old fellow.--Now madam, if you are
allowed by law to get out of this blasted house I can't get into, I will
pay your bill, Maria, and take you to a respectable hotel. What's that
one we used to go to when we ran down to see Irving? I can't think---Oh
yes--'The Holy Family.'"

"Don't be blasphemous, Price, whatever else you are!" admonished the
doctor. He was choking with laughter.

"Perhaps it was 'The Whol