for, tied
together, were a few notes signed with the writer's full name, of which
the first began:

Dear Mr. Barlow:
Forgive me for writing to your private address
[etc., etc.].

The ten days that followed her discovery had seared Agnes's soul. Frank
had been so dreadfully affectionate. He had pretended--she felt sure it
was all pretence--to be so glad to see her again, though sometimes she
caught him looking at her with cowed, miserable eyes.

More than once he had asked her solicitously if she felt ill, and she
had said yes, she did feel ill, and the time at the seaside had not done
her any good.

And then, on the last of those terrible ten days, Gerald Ferrier had
come down to Summerfield, and both she and Frank had pressed him to stay
on to dinner. He had done so, though aware that something was wrong, and
he had been extraordinarily kind, sympathetic, unquestioning. But as he
was leaving he had said a word to his host: "I feel worried about Mrs.
Barlow"--Agnes had heard him through the window. "She doesn't look the
thing, somehow! How would it be if I asked her to go with me to a
private view? It might cheer her up, and perhaps she would lunch with me
afterwards?" Frank had eagerly assented.

Since then Agnes had gone up to London, if not every day, very nearly
every day, and Mr. Ferrier had done his best, without much success, to
"cheer her up."

Though they soon became more intimate than they had ever been, Agnes
never told Ferrier what it was that had turned her from a happy,
unquestioning child into a miserable woman; but, of course, he guessed.

And gradually Frank also had come to know that she knew, and, man-like,
he spent less and less time in his now uncomfortable home. He would go
away in the morning an hour earlier than usual, and then, under pretext
of business keeping him late at the office, he would come back after
having dined, doubtless with "Janey," in town.

Soon Agnes began to draw a terrible comparison between these two
men--between the husband who had all she had of heart, and the friend
whom she now acknowledged to herself--for hypocrisy had fallen away from
her--had lived only for her, and for the hours they were able to spend
together, during two long years, and yet who had never told her of his
love, or tried to disturb her trust in Frank.

Yes, Gerald Ferrier was all that was noble--Frank Barlow all that was
ignoble. So she told herself with trembling lip a