here were one or two other jobs you heard of that might have
suited him.

Yours respectfully,
Amelia Piper.

Enid Crofton stared down at the signature with a sensation of puzzled
dismay. _Piper married?_ This was indeed a complication, and a
complication which in her most anxious communings she had never thought
of. The man had always behaved like a bachelor--for instance he had
always made love to the maids. There also came back to her the memory of
something her husband had once said, with one of his grimly humorous
looks:--"Piper's a regular dog! If he'd been born in a different class
of life he'd have been a real Don Juan." She now asked herself very
anxiously how far a married Don Juan of any class confides in his wife?
Does he tell her his real secrets, or does he keep them to himself?
Judging by her own experience the average man who loves a woman is only
too apt to tell her not only his own, but other people's secrets.

Slowly she put the letter back in its envelope. She had gone to a great
deal of trouble, and even to some little expense, over procuring Piper a
really good situation. She had seen not only his new employer, but also
what she liked doing far less, his new employer's wife; and she had got
him extraordinarily good wages, even for these days. It was too bad
that he should worry her, after all she had done for him. As for his
wife--nothing would induce her to see Mrs. Piper. Neither did she wish
Piper to come down to Beechfield. She was particularly anxious that the
man should not learn of Godfrey Radmore's return to England.
Unfortunately Radmore was on the lookout for a good manservant.

She took up the other letter. It was a nice, prosperous-looking, well
addressed envelope, very different from the other. Perhaps this second
letter would contain something that would cheer her up. But alas! when
she opened it, she found it was from Mrs. Winter, Piper's late employer's
wife.

Poor Enid Crofton! As she stood there reading it, she turned a little
sick. Piper had got drunk the very first day he had been in his new
situation. While drunk he had tried to kiss a virtuous young housemaid.
There had been a regular scene, which had ended in the lady of the house
being sent for. There and then Piper had been turned out neck and crop.

It was not only a justifiably angry letter, it was a very disagreeable
letter, the writer saying plainly that Mrs. Crofton had been very much to
blame for recommend