but I don't seem to be
able to get anything."

"If you had written to Mr. Greenfield or to William, they would have
told you that I had arranged for you to have an allowance," he said, and
then again he fell into silence....

Mr. Tapster was seeing a vision of himself, magnanimous,
forgiving--taking the peccant Flossy back to his heart and becoming once
more, in a material sense, comfortable! If he acceded to her wish, if he
made up his mind to forgive her, he would have to begin life all over
again, move away from Cumberland Crescent to some distant place where
the story was not known--perhaps to Clapham, where he had spent his
boyhood.

But how about Maud? How about William? How about the very considerable
expense to which he had been put in connection with the divorce
proceedings? Was all that money to be wasted? Mr. Tapster suddenly saw
the whole of his little world rising up in judgment, smiling pityingly
at his folly and weakness. During the whole of a long and of what had
been, till this last year, a very prosperous life, Mr. Tapster had
always steered his safe course by what may be called the compass of
public opinion, and now, when navigating an unknown sea, he could not
afford to throw that compass overboard, so----

"No," he said; "no, Flossy. It would not be right for me to take you
back. _It wouldn't do._"

"Wouldn't it?" she asked piteously. "Oh, James, don't say no like that,
all at once! People do forgive each other--sometimes. I don't ask you to
be as kind to me as you were before--only to let me come home and see
after the children!"

But Mr. Tapster shook his head. The children! Always the children! He
noticed, even now, that she didn't say a word of wanting to come back to
_him_; and yet, he had been such a kind, nay, if Maud were to be
believed, such a foolishly indulgent husband.

And then, Flossy looked so different. Mr. Tapster felt as if a stranger
were standing there before him. Her appearance of poverty shocked him.
Had she looked well and prosperous, he would have felt injured, and yet
her pinched face and shabby clothes certainly repelled him. So again he
shook his head, and there came into his face a look which Flossy had
always known in old days to spell finality, and when he again spoke she
saw that her knowledge had not misled her.

"I don't want to be unkind," he said ponderously. "If you will only go
to William, or write to him if you would rather not go to the
office,"--Mr