s life. Every one knew, she said, how she had neglected him.

The idea that Alice Lancaster was troubled with regrets was not as
unfounded as the rest of Mrs. Nailor's ill-natured charge. She was
attached to her husband, and had always meant to be a good wife to him.

She was as good a wife as her mother and her friends would permit her to
be. Gossip had not spared some of her best friends. Even as proud a
woman as young Mrs. Wentworth had not escaped. But Gossip had never yet
touched the name of Mrs. Lancaster, and Alice did not mean that it
should. It was not unnatural that she should have accepted the liberty
which her husband gave her and have gone out more and more, even though
he could accompany her less and less.

No maelstrom is more unrelenting in its grasp than is that of Society.
Only those who sink, or are cast aside by its seething waves, escape.
And before she knew it, Alice Lancaster had found herself drawn into the
whirlpool.

An attractive proposal had been made to her to go abroad and join some
friends of hers for a London season a year or two before. Grinnell
Rhodes had married Miss Creamer, who was fond of European society, and
they had taken a house in London for the season, which promised to be
very gay, and had suggested to Mrs. Lancaster to visit them. Mr.
Lancaster had found himself unable to go. A good many matters of
importance had been undertaken by him, and he must see them through, he
said. Moreover, he had not been very well of late, and he had felt that
he should be rather a drag amid the gayeties of the London season. Alice
had offered to give up the trip, but he would not hear of it. She must
go, he said, and he knew who would be the most charming woman in London.
So, having extracted from him the promise that, when his business
matters were all arranged, he would join her for a little run on the
Continent, she had set off for Paris, where "awful beauty puts on all
its arms," to make her preparations for the campaign.

Mr. Lancaster had not told her of an interview which her mother had had
with him, in which she had pointed out that Alice's health was suffering
from her want of gayety and amusement. He was not one to talk
of himself.

Alice Lancaster was still in Paris when a cable message announced to her
Mr. Lancaster's death. It was only after his death that she awoke to the
unselfishness of his life and to the completeness of his devotion
to her.

His will, after making prov