almost more materially than his, she had the
better courage to maintain her, and a more sustained conviction. It
might be that she would have to leave her home and go back to the
deanery, and in that there would be utter ruin to her happiness. Let
the result, however, be as it would, she could never own herself to
have been one tittle astray, and she was quite sure that her father
would support her in that position. The old 'ruat coelum' feeling was
strong within her. She would do anything she could for her husband
short of admitting, by any faintest concession, that she had been wrong
in reference to Captain De Baron. She would talk to him, coax him,
implore him, reason with him, forgive him, love him, and caress him.
She would try to be gentle with him this coming morning. But if he were
obdurate in blaming her, she would stand on her own innocence and fight
to the last gasp. He was supported by no such spirit of pugnacity. He
felt it to be his duty to withdraw his wife from the evil influence of
this man's attractions, but felt, at the same time, that he might
possibly lack the strength to do so. And then, what is the good of
withdrawing a wife, if the wife thinks that she ought not to be
withdrawn? There are sins as to which there is no satisfaction in
visiting the results with penalties. The sin is in the mind, or in the
heart, and is complete in its enormity, even though there be no result.
He was miserable because she had not at once acknowledged that she
never ought to see this man again, as soon as she had heard the horrors
which her husband had told her. "George," she said to him at breakfast,
the next morning, "do not let us go on in this way together."

"In what way?"

"Not speaking to each other,--condemning each other."

"I have not condemned you, and I don't know why you should condemn me."

"Because I think that you suspect me without a cause."

"I only tell you what people say!"

"If people told me bad things of you, George,--that you were this or
that, or the other, should I believe them?"

"A woman's name is everything."

"Then do you protect my name. But I deny it. Her name should be as
nothing when compared with her conduct. I don't like to be evil spoken
of, but I can bear that, or anything else, if you do not think evil of
me,--you and papa." This reference to her father brought back the black
cloud which her previous words had tended to dispel. "Tell me that you
do not suspect me."

"I