said my wife, with a moment's
hesitation for the word. Then she sighed and added, "Yes, it seems as if
that would be the only thing that could end it. There doesn't really
seem to be any provision in life for ending such things. He will have to
go on and make more and more trouble. Poor man! I feel almost as sorry
for him as I do for her. I guess he hasn't expiated his sin yet, as
fully as he thinks he has."

"And then," I went on, with a strange pleasure I always get out of the
poignancy of a despair not my own, "suppose that this isn't all. Suppose
that the girl has met some one who has become interested in her, and
whom she will have to tell of this stain upon her name?"

"Basil!" cried my wife, "that is cruel of you! You _knew_ I was keeping
away from that point, and it seems as if you tried to make it as
afflicting as you could--the whole affair."

"Well, I don't believe it's as bad as that. Probably she hasn't met any
one in that way; at any rate, it's pure conjecture on my part, and my
conjecture doesn't make it so."

"It doesn't unmake it, either, for you to say that now," my wife
lamented.

"Well, well! Don't let's think about it, then. The case is bad enough as
it stands, Heaven knows, and we've got to grapple with it as soon as we
get home. We shall find Tedham waiting for us, I dare say, unless
something has happened to him. I wonder if anything can have been good
enough to happen to Tedham, overnight."

I got a little miserable fun out of this, but my wife would not laugh;
she would not be placated in any way; she held me in a sort responsible
for the dilemma I had conjectured, and inculpated me in some measure for
that which had really presented itself.

When we reached home she went directly to her room and had a cup of tea
sent to her there, and the children and I had rather a solemn time at
the table together. A Sunday tea-table is solemn enough at the best,
with its ghastly substitution of cold dishes or thin sliced things for
the warm abundance of the week-day dinner; with the gloom of Mrs.
March's absence added, this was a very funereal feast indeed.

We went on quite silently for a while, for the children saw I was
preoccupied; but at last I asked, "Has anybody called this afternoon?"

"I don't know exactly whether it was a call or not," said my daughter,
with a nice feeling for the social proprieties which would have amused
me at another time. "But that strange person who was here last ni