,' he concluded, 'you have got into a preposterous scrape, and I
see only one way out of it. You must flee. When does your brother start
for the Antipodes?'

'Thursday morning.'

'Then you go with him; there's an end of it.'

Malkin listened with the blank, despairing look of a man condemned to
death.

'Do you hear me?' urged the other. 'Go home and pack. On Thursday I'll
see you off.'

'I can't bring myself to that,' came in a groan from Malkin. 'I've
never yet done anything to be seriously ashamed of, and I can't run
away after promising marriage. It would weigh upon me for the rest of
my life.'

'Humbug! Would it weigh upon you less to marry the mother, and all the
time be in love with the daughter? To my mind, there's something
peculiarly loathsome in the suggestion.'

'But, look here; Bella is very young, really very young indeed. It's
possible that I have deluded myself. Perhaps I don't really care for
her in the way I imagined. It's more than likely that I might be
content to regard her with fatherly affection.'

'Even supposing that, with what sort of affection do you regard Mrs
Jacox?'

Malkin writhed on his chair before replying.

'You mustn't misjudge her!' he exclaimed. 'She is no heartless schemer.
The poor thing almost cried her eyes out. It was a frightful scene. She
reproached herself bitterly. What _could_ I do? I have a tenderness for
her, there's no denying that. She has been so vilely used, and has
borne it all so patiently. How abominable it would be if I dealt her
another blow!'

The journalist raised his eyebrows, and uttered inarticulate sounds.

'Was anything said about Bella?' he asked, abruptly.

'Not a word. I'm convinced she doesn't suspect that I thought of Bella
like that. The fact is, I have misled her. She thought all along that
my chief interest was in _her_.'

'Indeed? Then what was the ground of her self-reproach that you speak
of?'

'How defective you are in the appreciation of delicate feeling!' cried
Malkin frantically, starting up and rushing about the room. 'She
reproached herself for having permitted me to get entangled with a
widow older than myself, and the mother of two children. What could be
simpler?'

Earwaker began to appreciate the dangers of the situation. If he
insisted upon his view of Mrs. Jacox's behaviour (though it was not the
harshest that the circumstances suggested, for he was disposed to
believe that the widow had really lost her heart t