r; and they kept it close, even
from Claud Dalzell. "I will tell him some day when we are married," Deb
had promised herself; but as things fell out, she never did tell him.
And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the suppressed
event that she now forbore to call him behind his back what she had not
hesitated to call him before his face--that is, failed to show that she
fully shared her lover's indignation at the MESALLIANCE, and the
scandalous way that it had been brought about.

"But, good heavens!"--Claud took his cup perfunctorily from her hand,
and at once set it down--"are more facts necessary? She has made a
clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the
church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one
here would consent to it; and what conceivable circumstances could
excuse such an act?"

"Illness," said Deb. "Madness."

"Nonsense! There's too much method in it. It is obviously but the
climax of a long intrigue--a course of duplicity that I could never
have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always
thought HIM cad enough for anything."

"Have your tea," said Deb, a trifle off-hand; "it will be cold."

And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely
air.

"A clandestine marriage," remarked Claud, ignoring her advice,
"logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was but a red
herring across the trail. And you ought to have known it, Deb."

"Well, I didn't," said she shortly.

He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wonted
well-bred calm. But he was intensely irritated by her attitude.

"I cannot understand you," he complained, with a hard edge to his
voice. "I should have thought that you--YOU of all people--would have
been wild--as wild as I am."

She exasperated him with a little laugh and a truly cutting sarcasm.
"It is bad form to SHOW that you are wild, you know, even if you feel
so."

"I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding
your feelings--at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of your
mind almost."

"What's the use? If I raved till doomsday I couldn't alter anything.
The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear."

"You look as if you did not want to cry." "Do I?"

"As if it did not much matter to you whether it was spilt or not." "It
doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her." "Well, it