t supposed you had gone with them.
What could have started them off in that fashion?"

"Well, well, don't let's stand here talking. Come on."

We did not stop for ceremony. Rushing up stairs, we donned our hats and
coats, and made our way out to the sidewalk without losing any time. I
hailed a carriage, and we drove rapidly out of town. It was about half
past one o'clock when we arrived home. There were lights in our room and
in Mrs. Pinkerton's chamber. George followed me up stairs, and I tapped
at the door of our room.

"Is it you, Charlie?" said Bessie's voice.

"Yes,--and George."

She opened the door. It was evidently not long since their arrival
home, for she had not begun to undress.

"Explain, for our benefit, the new method of leaving a party," said
George, "and why it was deemed necessary to give us a scare in
inaugurating the same." He threw himself into an easy-chair.

"Perhaps Mr. Travers is better able to tell you why mother should have
left in the way she did," said Bessie, trying to make her speech sound
sarcastic and cutting, but finding it a difficult job, with her breath
coming and going so quickly.

"The deuce he is!" roared George. "Come, Charlie, what have you been up
to? I must get it out of some of you."

"I am utterly unable to tell you why your mother should have left in the
way she did," was all I could find to say.

"Sapristi! This is getting mysterious and blood-curdling. The latest
_feuilleton_ is nothing to it. Must I go to bed without knowing the
cause of this escapade? Well, so be it. But let me tell you, young
woman, that it wasn't the thing to do. If you find your husband flirting
with some siren, you must lead him off by the ear next time, but don't
sulk. Good night."

George walked out and shut the door after him.

"See here, Bessie," I said kindly, "don't cry, because I want to talk
sensibly with you."

She was sobbing now in good earnest.

"I want you to tell me what your mother said to you about me."

She couldn't talk just then, poor little woman! But when she had had her
cry partly out, she told me.

Her mother had not told her a word of what had passed between Fred
Marston and me! The outraged dignity of the widow would not admit of an
explicit account of the unspeakable insult she had received. She had
simply given Bessie to understand that I had uttered some unpardonable,
infamous slander, and had hustled the poor girl breathlessly into a cab
and away, be