d of himself. "That is why," she went on, "that is why I have, as
you say, forced myself into your house, and why, too, I have now come
here to ask you to forgive me--to take me back--just for the sake of the
children."

Mr. Tapster's mind was one that traveled surely, if slowly. He saw his
chance, and seized it. "And why," he said impressively, "had that
woman--the nurse, I mean--no mistress? Tell me that, Flossy. You should
have thought of all that before you behaved as you did!"

"I didn't know--I didn't think----"

Mr. Tapster finished the sentence for her: "You didn't think," he
observed impressively, "that I should ever find you out."

Then there came over him a morbid wish to discover--to learn from her
own lips--why Flossy had done such a shameful and extraordinary thing as
to be unfaithful to her marriage vow.

"Whatever made you behave so?" he asked in a low voice. "I wasn't unkind
to you, was I? You had a nice, comfortable home, hadn't you?"

"I was mad," she answered, with a touch of sharp weariness. "I don't
suppose I could ever make you understand; and yet,"--she looked at him
deprecatingly,--"I suppose, James, that you too were young once,
and--and--mad?"

Mr. Tapster stared at Flossy. What extraordinary things she said! Of
course he had been young once; for the matter of that, he didn't feel
old--not to say _old_--even now. But he had always been perfectly
sane--she knew that well enough! As for her calling herself mad, that
was a mere figure of speech. Of course, in a sense, she had been mad to
do what she had done, and he was glad that she now understood this; but
her saying so simply begged the whole question, and left him no wiser
than he was before.

There was a long, tense silence between them. Then Mr. Tapster slowly
rose from his arm-chair and faced his wife.

"I see," he said, "that William was right. I mean, I suppose I may take
it that that young fellow has gone and left you?"

"Yes," she said, with a curious indifference, "he has gone and left me.
His father made him take a job out in Brazil just after the case was
through."

"And what have you been doing since then?" asked Mr. Tapster
suspiciously. "How have you been living?"

"His father gives me a pound a week." Flossy still spoke with that
curious indifference. "I tried to get something to do"--she hesitated,
then offered the lame explanation--"just to have something to do, for
I've been awfully lonely and miserable, James;