f meeting her."

"It isn't likely that you ever will. She isn't the sort one does
meet--now, poor thing."

"Who was she?"

"The wife of Sir Andrew Cayley, a tallow-chandler."

"Oh, how did Walter ever--"

"My dear, one meets all sorts of funny people in Scale. He was a very
wealthy tallow-chandler. Besides, it wasn't he that Walter did meet,
naturally."

"How can you joke about it? It makes me sick to think of it."

"It made me sick enough once, dear. But I don't think of it."

"I can't help thinking of it."

"Well, whenever you do, when it does come over you--it will,
sometimes--think of what Walter's life was before he knew you. Everything
was spoiled for him because of me. He was sent to a place he detested
because of me; put into an office which he loathed, shut up here in this
hateful house, because of me. And he was good to me, good and dear. Even
at the worst he hardly ever left me if he thought I wanted him--not even
to go to _her_. But he was young, and it was an awful life for him; you
don't know how awful. It would have been bad enough for a woman. It was
intolerable for a man. I was worse then than I am now. I was horribly
fretful, and I worried him. I think I drove him to her--I know I did. He
had to get away from it sometimes. Won't you think of that?"

"I'll try to think of it."

"And it won't make you not like him?"

"My dear, I liked him first for your sake, then I liked you for his, now
I suppose I must like him for yours again."

"No--for his own sake."

"Does it matter which?"

"Not much--so long as you like him. He really is angelic, though you
mayn't think it."

"I think you are."

Edith was not only angelic, but womanly and full of guile, and she knew
with whom she had to do. She had humbled Anne with shrewd shafts that
hit her in all her weak places; now she exalted her. Anne had not her
likeness in a thousand. She was a woman magnificently planned, of stature
not to be diminished by the highest pedestal. A figure fit for a throne,
a niche, a shrine. Edith could see the dear little downy feathers
sprouting on Anne's shoulder-blades, and the infant aureole playing
in her hair.

"You're a saint," said Edith.

"I am not," said Anne, while her pale cheek glowed with the flattery.

"Of course you are," said Edith, "or you could never have put up with
me."

Whereupon Anne kissed her.

"And I may tell Walter what you've said?"

It was thus that she spared Anne's mortal pr