returning. "I will go home."

"Not to-night; there is no train."

"I will walk."

"It is too far."

"I don't care. I will not stay here, though I die of cold by the
roadside."

"My cherished one, I have been annoying you purposely because you show
by your anger that you have not ceased to care for me. I am in the
wrong, as I usually am, and it is all my fault. Agatha knows nothing
about our marriage."

"I do not blame you so much," said Henrietta, suffering him to place her
head on his shoulder; "but I will never speak to Agatha again. She has
behaved shamefully to me, and I will tell her so."

"No doubt she will opine that it is all your fault, dearest, and that I
have behaved admirably. Between you I shall stand exonerated. And now,
since it is too cold for walking, since it is late, since it is far to
Lyvern and farther to London, I must improvise some accommodation for
you here."

"But--"

"But there is no help for it. You must stay."

CHAPTER IX

Next day Smilash obtained from his wife a promise that she would behave
towards Agatha as if the letter had given no offence. Henrietta pleaded
as movingly as she could for an immediate return to their domestic
state, but he put her off with endearing speeches, promised nothing but
eternal affection, and sent her back to London by the twelve o'clock
express. Then his countenance changed; he walked back to Lyvern, and
thence to the chalet, like a man pursued by disgust and remorse. Later
in the afternoon, to raise his spirits, he took his skates and went to
Wickens's pond, where, it being Saturday, he found the ice crowded
with the Alton students and their half-holiday visitors. Fairholme,
describing circles with his habitual air of compressed hardihood,
stopped and stared with indignant surprise as Smilash lurched past him.

"Is that man here by your permission?" he said to Farmer Wickens, who
was walking about as if superintending a harvest.

"He is here because he likes, I take it," said Wickens stubbornly. "He
is a neighbor of mine and a friend of mine. Is there any objections to
my having a friend on my own pond, seein' that there is nigh on two
or three ton of other people's friends on it 108 without as much as a
with-your-leave or a by-your-leave."

"Oh, no," said Fairholme, somewhat dashed. "If you are satisfied there
can be no objection."

"I'm glad on it. I thought there mout be."

"Let me tell you," said Fairholme, nettled, "that your l