sistance was at an end. He was as weak in her hands now
as if he had been the child and she had been the man.

Laughing and singing and dancing round him, Kitty led the way to the
window of the room that opened on the garden. Some one had closed it on
the inner side. She tapped impatiently at the glass. Her mother heard
the tapping; her mother came to the window; her mother ran out to meet
them. Since the miserable time when they left Mount Morven, since the
long unnatural separation of the parents and the child, those three were
together once more!

AFTER THE STORY

1.--The Lawyer's Apology.

That a woman of my wife's mature years should be jealous of one of the
most exemplary husbands that the records of matrimony can produce is,
to say the least of it, a discouraging circumstance. A man forgets
that virtue is its own reward, and asks, What is the use of conjugal
fidelity?

However, the motto of married life is (or ought to be): Peace at any
price. I have been this day relieved from the condition of secrecy that
has been imposed on me. You insisted on an explanation some time since.
Here it is at last.

For the ten-thousandth time, my dear, in our joint lives, you are again
right. That letter, marked private, which I received at the domestic
tea-table, was what you positively declared it to be, a letter from a
lady--a charming lady, plunged in the deepest perplexity. We had been
well known to each other for many years, as lawyer and client. She
wanted advice on this occasion also--and wanted it in the strictest
confidence. Was it consistent with my professional duty to show her
letter to my wife? Mrs. Sarrazin says Yes; Mrs. Sarrazin's husband says
No.

Let me add that the lady was a person of unblemished reputation, and
that she was placed in a false position through no fault of her own.
In plain English, she was divorced. Ah, my dear (to speak in the vivid
language of the people), do you smell a rat?

Yes: my client was Mrs. Norman; and to her pretty cottage in the country
I betook myself the next day. There I found my excellent friend Randal
Linley, present by special invitation.

Stop a minute. Why do I write all this, instead of explaining myself
by word of mouth? My love, you are a member of an old and illustrious
family; you honored me when you married me; and you have (as your father
told me on our wedding day) the high and haughty temper of your race.
I foresee an explosion of this tempe