another idea came to her. He might tear it up, unread!

On the outside she wrote:

To a very dear husband from a very
sorry wife.
_Quite short._
Read it!

By now she felt almost on the old terms--and how dear they had been,
she could see now--with him. This was the sort of thing he always
liked so much. It made him call her "child." She had sent notes
before, when she had to go out or something.

Very quietly she went to his door, slipped the note silently beneath
it, then with her bent finger gave it a good flick. She heard it whizz
across the polished floor. He could not fail to see or hear it, as he
always did.

With a new sense of peace she went back to the drawing-room and waited.
She was ashamed to notice, in the glass, how red her eyelids were.

Did other wives spend awful hours like this or was it just that she was
silly?

Minutes passed; the hour struck; the quarter; the half-hour.

He was not coming, then, till lunch time. What a slave of habit;--or
was he trying to punish her by this suspense?...

She fought that last idea: it would not be like Hugh. Possibly he had
written and left it in the hall? She went out. There was nothing
there.

One o'clock struck, and almost instantly she heard his door open. She
half rose, then she decided to sit where she was.

Would he never come? ... He was pottering about in the hall! Tapping
the glass now! ... How could men be so curious? ... At last the handle
turned. What were resolves? She could not help getting up, after all;
but he must speak first.

There was no need, really. His set face told her everything. He did
not come beyond the door.

"Helena," he said sternly, in a low voice that obviously considered
Lily, "I think it'll be better if we don't discuss this matter any
further. We may possibly forget. Anyhow, it's no time for childish
games. I'd already written, as you suggest to the newspapers. We
won't speak of this at all in front of Lily."

It was clearly a message learnt by heart, and with its last word the
door shut. He had never let go the handle.

Helena stood gazing after him with a face no less set than his own.

CHAPTER XXIII

SECRET NUMBER TWO

Three days passed, seeming like a year, and everything was just the
same. Each felt in the wrong, each had a grievance; and that is fatal
for a settlement.

Helena, rebuffed, was quite determined to make no more appeals: and he
was s