d closed upon her one
object remained clear. That object, as unfading as a mosaic mask, was
fortunately the loveliest she could possibly look upon. The greatest
blessing of all was of course that Dawling thought so. Her future was
ruled with the straightest line, and so for that matter was his. There
were two facts to which before I left my friends I gave time to sink
into my spirit. One of them was that he had changed by some process as
effective as Flora's change; had been simplified somehow into service as
she had been simplified into success. He was such a picture of inspired
intervention as I had never yet encountered: he would exist henceforth
for the sole purpose of rendering unnecessary, or rather impossible,
any reference even on her own part to his wife's infirmity. Oh yes, how
little desire he would ever give _me_ to refer to it! He principally
after a while made me feel--and this was my second lesson--that,
good-natured as he was, my being there to see it all oppressed him; so
that by the time the act ended I recognised that I too had filled out my
hour. Dawling remembered things; I think he caught in my very face the
irony of old judgments: they made him thresh about in his chair. I said
to Flora as I took leave of her that I would come to see her; but I may
mention that I never went. I'll go to-morrow if I hear she wants me; but
what in the world can she ever want? As I quitted them I laid my hand on
Dawling's arm and drew him for a moment into the lobby.

"Why did you never write to me of your marriage?"

He smiled uncomfortably, showing his long yellow teeth and something
more. "I don't know--the whole thing gave me such a tremendous lot to
do."

This was the first dishonest speech I had heard him make: he really
hadn't written to me because he had an idea I would think him a still
bigger fool than before. I didn't insist, but I tried there, in the
lobby, so far as a pressure of his hand could serve me, to give him a
notion of what I thought him. "I can't at any rate make out," I said,
"why I didn't hear from Mrs. Mel-drum."

"She didn't write to you?"

"Never a word. What has become of her?"

"I think she's at Folkestone," Dawling returned; "but I'm sorry to say
that practically she has ceased to see us."

"You haven't quarrelled with her?"

"How _could_ we? Think of all we owe her. At the time of our marriage,
and for months before, she did everything for us: I don't know how we
should have m