f Mrs. De Peyster. It's been mighty hard for me. Hasn't it
been hard for you?"

Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.

"Hasn't it been hard for you, dear?" William insisted tenderly.

"Ye--yes," very huskily.

"Why, what's the matter, Matilda? I know; you're tired, dear; your
nerves are all worn out with the strain of getting Mrs. De Peyster
off." Again his voice became tenderly indignant. "Just see how she
treated that Miss Gardner; and wouldn't she have done the same to us,
if she'd found us out? To think, dear, that but for her attitude you
and me might have been married and happy! I know you are devoted to
her, and wouldn't leave her, and I know she's kind enough in her
way, but I tell you, Matilda,"--William's voice, so superbly without
expression when on duty, was alive with conviction,--"I tell you,
Matilda, she's a regular female tyrant!"

There was a mighty surging within Mrs. De Peyster, a premonition of
eruption. But she choked it down. William, launched upon the placid
sea of his elderly affection, did not heed that his supposed inamorata
was making no replies.

"She's a regular tyrant!" he repeated. "But now that she's away,"
he added in a tender tone, "and left just us two here, Matilda dear,
we'll have a lot of nice little times together." And urged by his
welling love he again embraced her and again pressed a loverly kiss
upon Matilda's veil.

This was too much. The crater could be choked no longer. The eruption
came.

"Let me go!" Mrs. De Peyster cried, struggling; and her right hand,
striking wildly out, fell full upon William's sacred cheek.

He drew back amazed.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

Mrs. De Peyster searched frantically for the keyhole to the inner
door.

"Matilda, I'm not the man to take that!" he declared irefully. "What
do you mean?"

"Go! Go!" she gasped.

He drew back wrathfully, but with an awful dignity.

"Very well, Miss Simpson. But I'm not a man that forgives. You'll be
sorry for this!"

As he started stiffly away Mrs. De Peyster found the keyhole. She
turned her key, opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her.
Gasping, shivering, she groped in the dusky hall until she found
a chair. Into this she sank, half fainting, and sat shaking with
astoundment, with horror, with wrath.

Wrath swiftly became the ruling emotion. It began to fulminate. She
would discharge William! She would send him flying the very next
morning, bag and baggage!

Then an appall