his death), and that she had done, and was
doing, all that the ingenuity of a loving heart could suggest to keep
him alive in spite of the prediction, but that, in face of his infamous
brutality, she should do no more; that if he chose to die and leave her
a widow he might die and leave her a widow for all she cared; in brief,
that she had done with him.

When she had become relatively calm Stephen addressed her calmly, and
even ingratiatingly.

"I'm sorry," he said, and added, "but you know you did say that you were
hiding nothing from me."

"Of course," she retorted, "because I _was_." Her arguments were usually
on this high plane of logic.

"And you ought not to be so superstitious," Stephen proceeded.

"Well," said she, with truth, "one never knows." And she wiped away a
tear and showed the least hint of an inclination to kiss him. "And
anyhow my only anxiety was for you."

"Do you really believe what that woman said?" Stephen asked.

"Well," she repeated, "one never knows."

"Because if you do, I'll tell you something."

"What?" Vera demanded.

At this juncture Stephen committed an error of tactics. He might have
let her continue in the fear of his death, and thus remained on velvet
(subject to occasional outbreaks) for the rest of his life. But he gave
himself utterly away.

"She told _me_ I should live till I was ninety," said he. "So you can't
be a widow for quite half a century, and you'll be eighty yourself
then."

IV

Within twenty-four hours she was at him about the balcony.

"The summer will be lovely," she said, in reply to his argument about
climate.

"Rubbish," she said, in reply to his argument about safety.

"Who cares for your old breakfast-room?" she said, in reply to his
argument about darkness at breakfast.

"We will have trees planted on that side--big elms," she said, in reply
to his argument about the smoke of the Five Towns spoiling the view.

Whereupon Stephen definitely and clearly enunciated that he should not
build a balcony.

"Oh, but you must!" she protested.

"A balcony is quite impossible," said Stephen, with his firmest
masculinity.

"You'll see if it's impossible," said she, "_when I'm that widow_."

The curious may be interested to know that she has already begun to
plant trees.

THE CAT AND CUPID

I

The secret history of the Ebag marriage is now printed for the first
time. The Ebag family, who prefer their name to be accented on the f