coming to that! And my friends
have really been awfully kind, and supported me--even Victor's family.
Don't, don't think that I'm not respectable! I know how you look at such
things.'" Mrs. Constable closed the letter abruptly.

"I did look at such things in that way," she added, "but I've changed.
That letter helped to change me, and the fact that it was Gertrude who
had been through this. If you only knew Gertrude, Mr. Hodder, you
couldn't possibly think of her as anything but sweet and pure."

Although the extent of Hodder's acquaintance with Mrs. Warren had been
but five minutes, the letter had surprisingly retouched to something like
brilliancy her faded portrait, the glow in her cheeks, the iris blue in
her eyes. He recalled the little shock he had experienced when told that
she was divorced, for her appeal had lain in her very freshness, her
frank and confiding manner. She was one of those women who seem to say,
"Here I am, you can't but like me:" And he had responded--he remembered
that--he had liked her. And now her letter, despite his resistance, had
made its appeal, so genuinely human was it, so honest, although it
expressed a philosophy he abhorred.

Mrs. Constable was watching him mutely, striving to read in his grave
eyes the effect of her pleadings.

"You are telling me this, Mrs. Constable--why?" he asked.

"Because I wished you to know the exact situation before I asked you, as
a great favour to me, to Mr. Constable, to--to marry her in St. John's.
Of course," she went on, controlling her rising agitation, and
anticipating a sign of protest, "we shouldn't expect to have any people,
---and Gertrude wasn't married in St. John's before; that wedding was at
Passumset our seashore place. Oh, Mr. Hodder, before you answer, think
of our feelings, Mr. Constable's and mine! If you could see Mr.
Constable, you would know how he suffers--this thing has upset him more
than the divorce. His family have such pride. I am so worried about
him, and he doesn't eat anything and looks so haggard. I told him I
would see you and explain and that seemed to comfort him a little.
She is, after all, our child, and we don't want to feel, so far as our
church is concerned, that she is an Ishmaelite; we don't want to have the
spectacle of her having to go around, outside, to find a clergyman--that
would be too dreadful! I know how strict, how unflinching you are, and I
admire you for it. But this is a special case."

She pau