with a
faint smile. "But I feel that this is a new light. I must think. What
must be dropped? Am not I married to him, mother?"

"Oh, my darling, if it had not been for that woman----"

"But that woman--my thoughts are all very confused. I don't understand
it: perhaps he is not married to me--but I have always considered that
I---- The first thing, however, is his health, mother. We must see at
once about that."

"Yes, dear; but there is nothing alarming in it, from what Theo says."

The rest of the drive was in silence. They rattled along the London
streets in all the brightness of the May evening, meeting people in
carriages going out to dinner, and the steady stream of passengers on
foot, coming from the parks, coming from the hundred amusements of the
new season. Chatty saw them all without seeing them; her mind was taken
up by a new strain of thought. She had taken it for granted that all was
natural, that Dick was doing the thing that it was right to do: and now
she suddenly found herself in an atmosphere of uncertainty to which she
was unaccustomed, and in which, for the moment, all her faculties seemed
paralysed. Was it monstrous? Ought it to have been dropped? She was so
much bewildered that she could not tell what to say.

Theo and his wife both "came round" in the evening; she with a fragile
look as of impaired health, and an air of watching anxiety which it was
painful to see. She seemed to have one eye upon Theo always, whatever
she was doing, to see that he was pleased, or at least not displeased.
It had been her idea to go to Lady Horton's on the way and bring the
last news of Dick. Much better, going on quite well, will soon be
allowed to communicate with his friends, was the bulletin which Lady
Markland took Chatty aside to give.

"He has not been able to write himself all the time. The people who have
taken care of him--rough people, but very kind, from all that can be
presumed--found his father's address, and sent him word. Otherwise for
six or seven weeks there has been nothing from himself."

This gave Chatty a little consolation. "Theo says--it is all wrong, that
it ought to be dropped," she said.

"Theo has become severe in his judgments, Chatty."

"Has he? he was always a little severe. He got angry"--Chatty did not
observe the look of recognition in Lady Markland's face, as of a fact
_connu_. She went on slowly: "I wish that you would give me your opinion.
I thought for a long time I