eathing quickened, and her face flushed
blood-red.

The old doctor leaned back and looked from one to the other, studying
them openly and keenly. When he was satisfied, he ordered Windham to
take a chair near the window and told Agnes she might go out. She faced
him a moment; then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The
doctor finished something he was at, then got his pipe and filled and
lighted it, backed up against the chimney-piece, and stood eying Windham
with something more than his usual scowl.

"Well, young man," he asked, finally, "what did you come here for?"

"I came here because you asked me to."

"No, sir; you didn't," the old man retorted. "I said you might come if
you liked."

Windham stood up, trembling, and replied with suppressed passion:

"I came on your invitation. I did not come to be insulted."

"Tut, tut," the doctor rejoined. "You needn't be so hoity-toity; you
haven't much occasion; sit down. Have you been making any more of your
'mistakes,' as you call them?"

Windham answered emphatically: "No!"

"Are you going to?" the doctor continued.

"No, sir; I am not," Windham replied, with angry decision.

"Well, I wouldn't; you've done enough," the doctor commented roughly.
"You call it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many
crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be
just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of
swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and isn't made of wood,
ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to
be left out of account. You were bound to know the chances were that it
would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deliberately took
the risk of wrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your
own; you richly deserve all you got, and all that's coming to you. If
law could be made to conform to abstract justice, it would rank your
offence worse than many for which men pay behind bars."

He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who
came in lingering, and apparently unwilling.

"Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. "I've been giving this young man
my opinion of him, and haven't any more time to waste. You can tell him
what you think of him, and send him off."

He went out, and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned against it, and
stood there downcast and perfectly still. Windham sat sunk together, as
the doctor had left