ver said a word to any one at Brackenhurst
of how his wife had left him. He was too proud a man, if it came to
that, to acknowledge what seemed to him a personal disgrace, till
circumstances should absolutely force such acknowledgment upon him. He
had glossed it over meanwhile with the servants and neighbours by saying
that Mrs. Monteith had gone away with the children for their accustomed
holiday as always in August. Frida had actually chosen the day appointed
for their seaside journey as the fittest moment for her departure with
Bertram, so his story was received without doubt or inquiry. He had
bottled up his wrath in his own silent soul. There was still room,
therefore, to make all right again at home in the eyes of the world--if
but Frida was willing. So he sat there long, staring hard at his wife
in speechless debate, and discussing with himself whether or not to make
temporary overtures of peace to her.

In this matter, his pride itself fought hard with his pride. That is the
wont of savages. Would it not be better, now Bertram Ingledew had fairly
disappeared for ever from their sphere, to patch up a hollow truce for a
time at least with Frida, and let all things be to the outer eye
exactly as they had always been? The bewildering and brain-staggering
occurrences of the last half-hour, indeed, had struck deep and far into
his hard Scotch nature. The knowledge that the man who had stolen
his wife from him (as he phrased it to himself in his curious belated
mediaeval phraseology) was not a real live man of flesh and blood at
all, but an evanescent phantom of the twenty-fifth century, made him all
the more ready to patch up for the time-being a nominal reconciliation.
His nerves--for even HE had nerves--were still trembling to the core
with the mystic events of that wizard morning; but clearer and clearer
still it dawned upon him each moment that if things were ever to be set
right at all they must be set right then and there, before he returned
to the inn, and before Frida once more went back to their children. To
be sure, it was Frida's place to ask forgiveness first, and make the
first advances. But Frida made no move. So after sitting there long,
salving his masculine vanity with the flattering thought that after all
his rival was no mere man at all, but a spirit, an avatar, a thing of
pure imagination, he raised his head at last and looked inquiringly
towards Frida.

"Well?" he said slowly.

Frida raised her