thing like that in our family."

"Well, go on--go on!" Dwight cried. "Tell us about it."

Lulu spoke in a monotone, with her old manner of hesitation:

"We were going to Oregon. First down to New Orleans and then out to
California and up the coast." On this she paused and sighed. "Well, then
at Savannah, Georgia, he said he thought I better know, first. So he
told me."

"Yes--well, what did he _say_?" Dwight demanded irritably.

"Cora Waters," said Lulu. "Cora Waters. She married him down in San
Diego, eighteen years ago. She went to South America with him."

"Well, he never let us know of it, if she did," said Dwight.

"No. She married him just before he went. Then in South America, after
two years, she ran away again. That's all he knows."

"That's a pretty story," said Dwight contemptuously.

"He says if she'd been alive, she'd been after him for a divorce. And
she never has been, so he thinks she must be dead. The trouble is," Lulu
said again, "he wasn't sure. And I had to be sure."

"Well, but mercy," said Ina, "couldn't he find out now?"

"It might take a long time," said Lulu simply, "and I didn't want to
stay and not know."

"Well, then, why didn't he say so here?" Ina's indignation mounted.

"He would have. But you know how sudden everything was. He said he
thought about telling us right there in the restaurant, but of course
that'd been hard--wouldn't it? And then he felt so sure she was dead."

"Why did he tell you at all, then?" demanded Ina, whose processes were
simple.

"Yes. Well! Why indeed?" Dwight Herbert brought out these words with a
curious emphasis.

"I thought that, just at first," Lulu said, "but only just at first. Of
course that wouldn't have been right. And then, you see, he gave me my
choice."

"Gave you your choice?" Dwight echoed.

"Yes. About going on and taking the chances. He gave me my choice when
he told me, there in Savannah, Georgia."

"What made him conclude, by then, that you ought to be told?" Dwight
asked.

"Why, he'd got to thinking about it," she answered.

A silence fell. Lulu sat looking out toward the street.

"The only thing," she said, "as long as it happened, I kind of wish he
hadn't told me till we got to Oregon."

"Lulu!" said Ina. Ina began to cry. "You poor thing!" she said.

Her tears were a signal to Mrs. Bett, who had been striving to
understand all. Now she too wept, tossing up her hands and rocking her
body. Her saucer and spoon clat