window, into the snowy street. He remembered his morning walk. There was
no talk of souls in those eyes, no hint of higher things from those
lips, no covert taunt of superiority in that face.

Laura did not wince. But her eyes filled and her voice was husky as she
spoke: "Tom, I want your soul again--the one that used to speak to me in
the old days." She bent over him, and rubbed her cheek against his and
there she left him, still looking into the street.

That evening at sunset, Judge Van Dorn, with his ulster thrown back to
show his fine figure, walked in his character of town Prince homeward up
the avenue. His face was amiable; he was gracious to every one. He spoke
to rich and poor alike, as was his wont. As he turned into his home
yard, he waved at a little face in the window. In the house he was the
spirit of good nature itself. He was full of quips and pleasantries and
happy turns of speech. But Laura Van Dorn had learned deep in her heart
to fear that mood. She was ashamed of her wisdom--degraded by her doubt,
and she fought with it.

And yet a man and a woman do not live together as man and wife and
parents without learning much that does not come from speech and is not
put into formulated conviction. The signs were all for trouble, and in
the secret places of her heart she knew these signs.

She knew that this grand manner, this expansive mood, this keying up of
attentions to her were the beginnings of a sad and sordid story--a story
that she did not entirely understand; would not entirely translate, but
a story that sickened her very soul. To keep the table talk going, she
said: "Tom, it's wonderful the way Kenyon is taking to the violin. He
has a real gift, I believe."

"Yes," answered the husband absently, and then as one who would plunge
ahead, began: "By the by--why don't you have your father and mother and
some of the neighbors over to play cards some evening--and what's the
matter with the Fenns? Henry's kind of down on his luck, and I'll need
him in my next campaign, and I thought if we could have them over some
evening--well, what's the matter with to-morrow evening? They'd enjoy
it. You know Mrs. Fenn--I saw her down town this morning, and George
Brotherton says Henry's slipping back to his old ways. And I just
thought perhaps--"

But she knew as well as he what he "thought perhaps," and a cloud
trailed over her face.

When Thomas Van Dorn left his home that night, striding into the lights
o