ave been made a delegate to the Berne
conference on the housing of factory operatives," he said at length,
without making a direct reply to the question; "and if there is nothing
to keep me at Westmore, I shall probably go out in July." He waited a
moment, and then added: "My wife has decided to spend the summer in
Michigan."

Mr. Langhope's answer was a vague murmur of assent, and Amherst turned
the talk to other matters.

* * * * *

Mr. Langhope returned to town with distinct views on the situation at
Hanaford.

"Poor devil--I'm sorry for him: he can hardly speak of her," he broke
out at once to Mrs. Ansell, in the course of their first confidential
hour together.

"Because he cares too much--he's too unhappy?"

"Because he loathes her!" Mr. Langhope brought out with emphasis.

Mrs. Ansell drew a deep sigh which made him add accusingly: "I believe
you're actually sorry!"

"Sorry?" She raised her eye-brows with a slight smile. "Should one not
always be sorry to know there's a little less love and a little more
hate in the world?"

"You'll be asking _me_ not to hate her next!"

She still continued to smile on him. "It's the haters, not the hated,
I'm sorry for," she said at length; and he flung back impatiently: "Oh,
don't let's talk of her. I sometimes feel she takes up more place in our
lives than when she was with us!"

* * * * *

Amherst went to the Berne conference in July, and spent six weeks
afterward in rapid visits to various industrial centres and model
factory villages. During his previous European pilgrimages his interest
had by no means been restricted to sociological questions: the appeal of
an old civilization, reaching him through its innumerable forms of
tradition and beauty, had roused that side of his imagination which his
work at home left untouched. But upon his present state of deep moral
commotion the spells of art and history were powerless to work. The
foundations of his life had been shaken, and the fair exterior of the
world was as vacant as a maniac's face. He could only take refuge in his
special task, barricading himself against every expression of beauty and
poetry as so many poignant reminders of a phase of life that he was
vainly trying to cast off and forget.

Even his work had been embittered to him, thrust out of its place in the
ordered scheme of things. It had cost him a hard struggle to hold fast
to his