has more than once occurred to me that I did very
wrong to meddle with Frank's first love affair. He would be far happier
now if it had been suffered to go on, for I suspect he has never
entirely gotten over it; but it is too late now for regrets. Nettie is
his wife, and he must make the best of it."

Then followed what seemed the secret of the Van Buren discomfort. The
bank in which most of Nettie's fortune was deposited had failed, leaving
her with only the scanty income of five hundred dollars a year, a sum
not sufficient to buy clothes, Mrs. Van Buren said. But Richard did not
notice this--his mind was only intent upon Frank's first love affair,
which ought to have gone on. He did not ask himself whether, in case it
had gone on, Ethelyn would have been there, so near to him that her soft
breathing came distinctly to his ear. He knew she would not; there had
been something between her and Frank Van Buren, he was convinced beyond
a doubt, and the fiercest pang he had ever known was that which came to
him when he sat with Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's letter in his hand, wondering
why Ethie had withheld the knowledge of it from him, and if she had
outlived the love which her aunt regretted as having come to naught.
Then, as the more generous part of his nature began to seek excuses for
her, he asked himself why she offered to read the letter if she had
really been concerned in Frank's first love affair, and hope whispered
that possibly she was not the heroine of that romance. There was comfort
in that thought: and Richard would have been comforted if jealousy had
not suggested how easy it was for her to skip the part relating to
Nettie and Frank, and thus leave him as much in the dark as ever. Yes,
that was undoubtedly her intention. While seeming to be so open and
honest, she would have deceived him all the more. This was what Richard
decided, and his heart grew very hard against the young wife, who looked
so innocent and pretty in her quiet sleep, when at last he sought his
pillow and lay down by her side.

He was very moody and silent for days after that, and even his clients
detected an irritability in his manner which they had never seen before.
"There was nothing ailed him," he said to Ethelyn, when she asked what
was the matter, and accused him of being positively cross. She was very
gay; Camden society suited her; and as the season advanced, and the
festivities grew more and more frequent, she was seldom at home more
t