as
not going to live again, but for him to tell you that he was _afraid_ he
was!" An image sufficiently monstrous to typify Hilbrook's wickedness
failed to present itself to Mrs. Ewbert, and she went out to give the
maid instructions for something unusually nourishing for Ewbert at their
mid-day dinner. "You look fairly fagged out, Clarence," she said, when
she came back; "and I insist upon your not going up to that dreadful old
man's again,--at least, not till you've got over this shock."

"Oh, I don't think it has affected me seriously," he returned lightly.

"Yes, it has! yes, it has!" she declared. "It's just like your thinking
you hadn't taken cold, the other day when you were caught in the rain;
and the next morning you got up with a sore throat, and it was Sunday
morning, too."

Ewbert could not deny this, and he had no great wish to see Hilbrook
soon again. He consented to wait for Hilbrook to come to him, before
trying to satisfy these scruples of conscience which he had hinted at;
and he reasonably hoped that the painful points would cease to rankle
with the lapse of time, if there should be a long interval before they
met.

That night, before the Ewberts had finished their tea, there came a ring
at the door, from which Mrs. Ewbert disconsolately foreboded a premature
evening call. "And just when I was counting on a long, quiet, restful
time for you, and getting you to bed early!" she lamented in undertone
to her husband; to the maid who passed through the room with an
inquiring glance, to the front door, she sighed, still in undertone, "Oh
yes, of course we're at _home_."

They both listened for the voice at the door, to make out who was there;
but the voice was so low that they were still in ignorance while the
maid was showing the visitor into the library, and until she came back
to them.

"It's that old gentleman who lives all alone by himself on the hill over
the brook," she explained; and Mrs. Ewbert rose with an air of
authority, waving her husband to keep his seat.

"Now, Clarence, I am simply not going to _let_ you go in. You are sick
enough as it is, and if you are going to let that _awful_ old man spend
the whole evening here, and drain the life out of you! _I_ will see him,
and tell him"--

"No, no, Emily! It won't do. I _must_ see him. It isn't true that I'm
sick. He's old, and he has a right to the best we can do for him. Think
of his loneliness! I shall certainly not let you send him a