is wife for the necessary expenses for running away
with another woman!"

The colonel sat down abruptly before the great, open fireplace, and
stared hard at the pine-boughs which were heaped up in it.

"A penny," said she, at length.

He glanced up with a smile. "My dear madam, it would be robbery! For a
penny, you may read of the subject of my thoughts in any of the yellow
journals, only far more vividly set forth, and obtain a variety of more
or less savory additions, to boot. I was thinking of the Lethbury case,
and wondering how we could have been so long deceived by the man."

"Ah, poor Mrs. Lethbury!" Anne sighed, "I am very sorry for her,
Rudolph; she was a good woman, and was always interested in charitable
work."

"Do you know," said Colonel Musgrave, with deliberation, "it is she I
cannot understand. To discover that he had been systematically
hoodwinking her for some ten years; that, after making away with as much
of her fortune as he was able to lay hands on, he has betrayed business
trust after business trust in order to--to maintain another
establishment; that he has never cared for her, and has made her his
dupe time after time, in order to obtain money for his gambling debts
and other even less reputable obligations--she must realize all these
things now, you know, and one would have thought no woman's love could
possibly survive such a test. Yet, she is standing by him through thick
and thin. Yes, I confess, Amelia Lethbury puzzles me. I don't understand
her mental attitude."

Musgrave was looking at Anne very intently as he ended.

"Why, but of course," said Anne, "she realizes that it was all the fault
of that--that other woman; and, besides, the--the entanglement has been
going on only a little over eight years--not ten, Rudolph."

She was entirely in earnest; Colonel Musgrave could see it plainly.

"I admit I hadn't looked on it in that light," said he, at length, and
was silent for a moment Then, "Upon my soul, Anne," he cried, "I believe
you think the woman is only doing the natural thing, only doing the
thing one has a right to expect of her, in sticking to that blackguard
after she has found him out!"

Mrs. Charteris raised her eyebrows; she was really surprised.
"Naturally, she must stand by her husband when he is in trouble; why,
if his own wife didn't, who would, Rudolph? It is just now that he needs
her most. It would be abominable to desert him now."

Anne paused and thought. "