tered on her knee.

"He felt bad too," Lulu said.

"He!" said Dwight. "He must have."

"It's you," Ina sobbed. "It's you. _My_ sister!"

"Well," said Lulu, "but I never thought of it making you both feel bad,
or I wouldn't have come home. I knew," she added, "it'd make Dwight feel
bad. I mean, it was his brother--"

"Thank goodness," Ina broke in, "nobody need know about it."

Lulu regarded her, without change.

"Oh, yes," she said in her monotone. "People will have to know."

"I do not see the necessity." Dwight's voice was an edge. Then too he
said "do not," always with Dwight betokening the finalities.

"Why, what would they think?" Lulu asked, troubled.

"What difference does it make what they think?".

"Why," said Lulu slowly, "I shouldn't like--you see they might--why,
Dwight, I think we'll have to tell them."

"You do! You think the disgrace of bigamy in this family is something
the whole town will have to know about?"

Lulu looked at him with parted lips.

"Say," she said, "I never thought about it being that."

Dwight laughed. "What did you think it was? And whose disgrace is it,
pray?"

"Ninian's," said Lulu.

"Ninian's! Well, he's gone. But you're here. And I'm here. Folks'll feel
sorry for you. But the disgrace--that'd reflect on me. See?"

"But if we don't tell, what'll they think then?"

Said Dwight: "They'll think what they always think when a wife leaves
her husband. They'll think you couldn't get along. That's all."

"I should hate that," said Lulu.

"Well, I should hate the other, let me tell you."

"Dwight, Dwight," said Ina. "Let's go in the house. I'm afraid they'll
hear--"

As they rose, Mrs. Bett plucked at her returned daughter's sleeve.

"Lulie," she said, "was his other wife--was she _there_?"

"No, no, mother. She wasn't there."

Mrs. Bett's lips moved, repeating the words. "Then that ain't so bad,"
she said. "I was afraid maybe she turned you out."

"No," Lulu said, "it wasn't that bad, mother."

Mrs. Bett brightened. In little matters, she quarrelled and resented,
but the large issues left her blank.

Through some indeterminate sense of the importance due this crisis, the
Deacons entered their parlour. Dwight lighted that high, central burner
and faced about, saying:

"In fact, I simply will not have it, Lulu! You expect, I take it, to
make your home with us in the future, on the old terms."

"Well--"

"I mean, did Ninian give you any money?"

"No.