is a perfect
protection; only males can vote. This is all a form of feminine
hysteria, Stacey; it's bound to pass. Just sit tight in the boat and
wait. I don't mind telling you that the trustees of this--d--er--this
Foundation are spending their income like water. When that gives out,
they'll be at the end of their tether. They can't touch the principal."

"But they might borrow on it," Stacey put in doubtfully as he arose to
take his departure.

This was a devilish possibility of which Coleman had not thought. He was
angry with Stacey for suggesting it.

"Damphule to leave the church with Susan Walton in it!" he grumbled as
he went upstairs.

Agatha was already in bed. She lay with her hands crossed above the
coverlid, her eyes closed, her face resting upon the pillow as serene as
the epitaph of a good woman on a large white tombstone.

He undressed stealthily. He would no more have disturbed her than he
would have thrust a thorn in his side. He turned out the light and lay
down beside her, scarcely allowing himself the relief of a sigh.

Instantly Agatha's eyes flew open. She lay very still watching him.
She could make out his nose in the dark. It was a powerfully built,
upstanding nose which even the shadows of the night did not entirely
conceal. Slowly she divined his features one by one. A man, even
the ablest, looks very helpless in his sleep. She saw his chin drop,
his mouth open. Then the silence was parted by a certain sound,
exactly the same sound she had heard every night since she had
married--"Ha-a-w-s-ah! Ah-ha-a-w-sah." It was a cross between the bray
of an ass and the excruciating grief of a cat.

Most men come down to this the moment they sink into the unconsciousness
of slumber. It is a kind of reversion to type which they suffer without
knowing it.

Agatha had often lain awake resenting the blasts which Coleman sent
through his nose. But to-night the sound touched some cord of
tenderness. It reminded her of the years and years they had lived
together as they could never live again. She laid her hand gently upon
his breast. He gave a terrific snort, then groaned. Even in his sleep he
was troubled. She, his wife, had failed him in some dear intimacy of the
soul. She wondered how she would be able to hold out against him. It
was no use to pretend that she was not against him. She knew that she
was, that nothing but an incredible change in the order of things could
unite them again as they had b