er for the
impromptu party which prolonged itself with much laughter and many
friendly wranglings over trumps and "post-mortems" until after midnight.
Paul was in the highest of gay spirits as he stood with his pretty wife
on the porch, calling good-nights to his guests disappearing down the
starlit driveway. He inhaled the odor of success sweet and strong in his
nostrils.

As they looked back into the house, they saw the faithful Ellen clearing
away the soiled dishes, her large, white, disease-scarred face
impassive over her immaculate and correct maid's dress.

"Isn't she a treasure!" cried the master of the house. "To sit up to
this hour!" He started, "What's that?"

From the shadow of the house a slim lad's figure shambled out into the
driveway. As he passed the porch where Paul stood, one strong arm
protectingly about Lydia, he looked up and the light from the open door
struck full on a white, purposeless, vacant smile. The upward glance
lost for him the uncertain balance of his wavering feet. He reeled,
flung up his arms and pitched with drunken soddenness full length upon
the gravel, picking himself up clumsily with a sound of incoherent, weak
lament. "Why, it's a drunken man--in _our driveway_!" cried Paul, with
proprietary indignation. "Get out of here!" he yelled angrily at the
intruder's retreating back. When he turned again to Lydia he saw that
one of her lightning-swift changes of mood had swept over her. He was
startled at her pale face and burning, horrified eyes, and remembering
her condition with apprehension, picked her up bodily and carried her up
the stairs to their bedroom, soothing her with reassuring caresses.

There, sitting on the edge of their bed, her loosened hair falling about
her white face, holding fast to her husband's hands, Lydia told him at
last; hesitating and stumbling because in her blank ignorance she knew
no words even to hint at what she feared--she told him who Patsy was,
the blue-eyed, fifteen-year-old boy, just over from Ireland, ignorant of
the world as a child of five, easily led, easily shamed, by his fear of
appearing rustic, into any excess--and then she told him what the boy's
grandmother had told her about Ellen. It was a milestone in their
married life, her turning to him more intimately than she would have
done to her mother, her breaking down the walls of her lifelong
maiden's reserve and ignorance. She finished with her face hidden in his
breast. What should she