eside his wife unaware that her
individuality had become a part of the texture of his life, ineradicable
as some growth on a vital organ; and he now felt himself at once
incapable of forecasting her judgment and powerless to evade its
effects.

To escape, the next morning, the confidences of the breakfast-table, he
went to town earlier than usual. His wife, who read slowly, was given to
talking over what she read, and at present his first object in life was
to postpone the inevitable discussion of the letters. This instinct of
protection in the afternoon, on his way uptown, guided him to the club
in search of a man who might be persuaded to come out to the country to
dine. The only man in the club was Flamel.

Glennard, as he heard himself almost involuntarily pressing Flamel to
come and dine, felt the full irony of the situation. To use Flamel as
a shield against his wife's scrutiny was only a shade less humiliating
than to reckon on his wife as a defence against Flamel.

He felt a contradictory movement of annoyance at the latter's ready
acceptance, and the two men drove in silence to the station. As they
passed the bookstall in the waiting-room Flamel lingered a moment and
the eyes of both fell on Margaret Aubyn's name, conspicuously displayed
above a counter stacked with the familiar volumes.

"We shall be late, you know," Glennard remonstrated, pulling out his
watch.

"Go ahead," said Flamel, imperturbably. "I want to get something--"

Glennard turned on his heel and walked down the platform. Flamel
rejoined him with an innocent-looking magazine in his hand; but Glennard
dared not even glance at the cover, lest it should show the syllables he
feared.

The train was full of people they knew, and they were kept apart till
it dropped them at the little suburban station. As they strolled up the
shaded hill, Glennard talked volubly, pointing out the improvements
in the neighborhood, deploring the threatened approach of an electric
railway, and screening himself by a series of reflex adjustments from
the imminent risk of any allusion to the "Letters." Flamel suffered his
discourse with the bland inattention that we accord to the affairs of
someone else's suburb, and they reached the shelter of Alexa's tea-table
without a perceptible turn toward the dreaded topic.

The dinner passed off safely. Flamel, always at his best in Alexa's
presence, gave her the kind of attention which is like a beaconing light
thrown o