e notes in either. And then you put them
into the wrong envelopes. And you sent this note to my wife, and the
other note to the other person--"

Welling: "No, I didn't do anything of the kind!" He regards Campbell
with amazement, and some apparent doubt of his sanity.

Campbell: "Well, then, Mr. Welling, will you allow me to ask what the
deuce you did do?"

Welling: "I never wrote to Mrs. Campbell at all. I thought I would just
drop in and tell her why I couldn't come. It seemed so formal to write."

Campbell: "Then will you be kind enough to tell me whom you _did_ write
to?"

Welling: "No, Mr. Campbell, I can't do that."

Campbell: "You write such a letter as that to my wife, and then won't
tell me whom it's to?"

Welling: "No! And you've no right to ask me."

Campbell: "I've no right to ask you?"

Welling: "No. When I tell you that the note wasn't meant for Mrs.
Campbell, that's enough."

Campbell: "I'll be judge of that, Mr. Welling. You say that you were not
writing two notes at the time, and that you didn't get the envelopes
mixed. Then, if the note wasn't meant for my wife, why did you address
it to her?"

Welling: "That's what I can't tell; that's what I don't know. It's as
great a mystery to me as it is to you. I can only conjecture that when I
was writing that address I was thinking of coming to explain to Mrs.
Campbell that I was going away to-day, and shouldn't be back till after
her party. It was too complicated to put in a note without seeming to
give my regrets too much importance. And I suppose that when I was
addressing the note that I did write I put Mrs. Campbell's name on
because I had her so much in mind."

Campbell, with irony: "Oh!"

III

_MRS. CAMPBELL; MR. WELLING; MR. CAMPBELL_

Mrs. Campbell, appearing through the portiere that separates the
breakfast-room from the parlor beyond: "Yes!" She goes up and gives her
hand to Mr. Welling with friendly frankness. "And it was very nice of
you to think of me at such a time, when you ought to have been thinking
of some one else."

Welling, with great relief and effusion: "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Campbell!
I was sure you would understand. You couldn't have imagined me capable
of addressing such language to you; of presuming--of--"

Mrs. Campbell: "Of course not! And Willis has quite lost his head. I saw
in an instant just how it was. I'm so sorry you can't come to my
party--"

Campbell: "Amy, have you been eavesdropping?"

M