oncerned? Why, my son's wife is
the talk of the town, and my son sits here and asks me what I mean?"

"Mamma! mamma!" Mildred said, imploringly. "Pray don't! You are
cruel! Don't say such dreadful things!"

"Your mother is cruel, and unjust, and unnatural!" he said, in a hard,
hoarse voice. "Do you tell me what she means, Mildred."

"Don't ask me, Everard!" Mildred said, in distress. "We have heard
cruel, wicked stories---false, I know--about Harrie and--and a
stranger--an American gentleman--who is stopping at the Blue Bell Inn."

"Yes, Everard," his mother said, pity for him, hatred of his wife,
strangely mingled in look and tone, "your bride of a month is the talk
of the place. The names of Lady Kingsland and this unknown man go
whispered together from lip to lip."

"What do they say?"

"Nothing!" Mildred exclaimed, indignantly--"nothing but their own base
suspicions! She nearly fainted at first sight of him. He showed her a
picture, and she ran out of the room and fell into hysterics. Since
then he has written to her, and mysterious personages--females in
disguise--visit him at the Blue Bell. That is what they whisper,
Everard; nothing more."

"Nothing more!" echoed her mother. "Quite enough, I think. What would
you have, Miss Kingsland? Everard, who is this man?"

"You appear to know more than I do, mother. He is an American--a
traveling photograph artist--and my wife never laid eyes on him until
she saw him, the day after our arrival, in the library. As to the
fainting and the hysterics, I chanced to be in the library all through
that first interview, and I saw neither one nor the other. I am sorry
to spoil the pretty romance in which you take such evident delight, my
good, kind, charitable mother; but truth obliges me to tell you it is a
fabrication from beginning to end. And now, if you will be good enough
to tell me the name of the originator of this report, you will confer
upon me the last favor I shall ever ask of you. My wife's honor is
mine; and neither she nor I will ever set foot in a house where such
stories are credited--not only credited, but exulted in. Tell me the
name of your tale-maker, Lady Kingsland, and permit me to wish you
good-evening."

"Everard!" his sister cried, in agony.

But he cut her short with an impatient wave of his hand.

"Hush, Mildred; let my mother speak."

"I have nothing to say." She stood haughtily before him, and they
looked each other fu