condition is a great possession, and he took
considerable pains to keep himself what he called "fit." Now Mrs.
Archdale was recklessly imprudent concerning her health, the health,
that is, which was of so great a value to him, her friend. She took her
meals at such odd times; she did not seem to mind, hardly to know, what
she ate and drank!

Of the many strange things Coxeter had known her to do, by far the
strangest, and one which he could scarcely think of without an inward
tremor, had happened only a few months ago.

Nan had been with an ailing friend, and the ailing friend's only son, in
the Highlands, and this friend, a foolish woman,--when recalling the
matter Coxeter never omitted to call this lady a foolish woman--on
sending her boy back to school, had given him what she had thought to be
a dose of medicine out of the wrong bottle, a bottle marked "Poison."
Nothing could be done, for the boy had started on his long railway
journey south before the mistake had been discovered, and even Coxeter,
when hearing the story told, had realized that had he been there he
would have been sorry, really sorry, for the foolish mother.

But Nan's sympathy--and on this point Coxeter always dwelt with a
special sense of injury--had taken a practical shape. She had poured out
a similar dose from the bottle marked "Poison" and had calmly drunk it,
observing as she did so, "I don't believe it _is_ poison in the real
sense of the word, but at any rate we shall soon be able to find out
exactly what is happening to Dick."

Nothing, or at least nothing but a bad headache, had followed, and so
far had Nan been justified of her folly. But to Coxeter it was terrible
to think of what might have happened, and he had not shared in any
degree the mingled amusement and admiration which the story, as told
afterwards by the culpable mother, had drawn forth. In fact, so deeply
had he felt about it that he had not trusted himself to speak of the
matter to Mrs. Archdale.

But Mrs. Archdale was not only reckless of her health; she was also
reckless--perhaps uncaring would be the truer word--of something which
John Coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than her
health or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, and yet so
easily frayed, human vesture termed reputation.

To John Coxeter the women of his own class, if worthy, that is, of
consideration and respect, went clad in a delicate robe of ermine, and
the thought that t