ty reasons."

"Brook won't act as I did, my dear," said Sir Adam. "He's like you in
that. He'll make as good a husband as you have been a good wife--"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Lady Johnstone. "You're all alike, you
Johnstones! I was talking to him this morning about her--I knew there
was the beginning of something--and I told him what I thought. You're
all bad, and I love you all; but if you think that Clare Bowring is as
practical as I am, you're very much mistaken, Adam, dear! She'll break
her heart--"

"If she does, I'll shoot him," answered the old man with a grim smile.
"I told him so."

"Did you? Well, I am glad you take that view of it," said Lady
Johnstone, thoughtfully, and not at all realising what she was saying.
"I'm glad I'm not a nervous woman," she added, beginning to fan herself.
"I should be in my grave, you know."

"No--you are not nervous, my dear, and I'm very glad of it. I suppose
it really is rather a trying situation. But if I didn't know you, I
wouldn't have told you all this. You've spoiled me, you know--you really
have been so tremendously good to me--always, dear."

There was a rough, half unwilling tenderness in his voice, and his big
bony hand rested gently on the fat lady's shoulder, as he spoke. She
bent her head to one side, till her large red cheek touched the brown
knuckles. It was, in a way, almost grotesque. But there was that
something in it which could make youth and beauty and passion
ridiculous--the outspoken truthful old rake and the ever-forgiving wife.
Who shall say wherein pathos lies? And yet it seems to be something more
than a mere hack-writer's word, after all. The strangest acts of life
sometimes go off in such an oddly quiet humdrum way, and then all at
once there is the little quiver in the throat, when one least expects
it--and the sad-eyed, faithful, loving angel has passed by quickly, low
and soft, his gentle wings just brushing the still waters of our unwept
tears.

Sir Adam left his wife to go in search of Mrs. Bowring. He sent a
message to her, and she came out and met him in the corridor. They went
into the reading-room together, and he shut the door. In a few words he
told her all that he had told his wife about Mrs. Crosby, and asked her
whether she had any objection to signing the document as a witness,
merely in order that he might satisfy himself by actually executing it.

"It is high handed," said Mrs. Bowring. "It is like you--but I suppose
you h