," she laughingly commiserated him. "And yet I
hardly think you 're poor enough to let the fact of her wealth weigh
with you. If a man has enough for himself, it does n't matter how much
more his wife may have, since he 'll not depend upon her for his
support. I should n't lie awake o' nights, bothering about the money
question."

Anthony got up, and stood at the end of the fireplace, with his elbow
on the mantel.

"You 're awfully good," he said, looking down at the gracious little
old figure in the easy chair.

"I 'm an old woman," said she. "All old women love a lover. You renew
the romance of things for us. You transport us back, a century or so,
to our hot youth, when George the Third was king, and we were lovers
ourselves. _Et in Arcadia ego_--but I 've lost my Greek."

"You 'll never lose your Pierian," said Anthony, bowing.

He took her hand, bent over it, and touched it with his lips.

"If flattery can make friends, you 'll not lack 'em," said she, with a
pretty, pleased old blush.

"But I 've not yet emptied my sack," said he, relapsing into gloom.
"There's a further and perhaps a greater difficulty."

"Let's hear the further difficulty," cheerily proposed Miss Sandus.
Then, as he appeared to hesitate, "Has it anything to do with her
former marriage?"

"You divine my thoughts," he replied, in an outburst. "Yet," he more
lightly added, "you know, I don't in the least believe in her former
marriage. She seems so--well, if not exactly girlish, so young, so
immaculately fresh, it's impossible to believe in. None the less, of
course, it 's an irrevocable fact, and it's a complication. I must n't
intrude on sacred ground. If she still grieves . . ."

A gesture conveyed the rest.

"Look here," said Miss Sandus, abruptly. "I'm going to betray a trust.
Think what you will of me, I 'm going to violate a confidence. She
does n't grieve, she has never grieved. Your intuitions about her are
right to the letter. She was never married, except in name--it was
purely a marriage of convenience--the man was a complete nonentity.
Don't ask me the whys and the wherefores. But make what you will of
that which I 've been indiscreet enough to tell you."

"I think you are an angel out of Heaven," cried Anthony, with ardour.
"If you could know the load you have lifted from my heart, the balm you
have poured into it."

"If you have n't wealth," Miss Sandus went on, summing the issue up,
"you have a good