shes, this eagerness to
screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the
way for fresh inferences.

The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday
the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia
ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was
to be some music after his "talk"? Westall was just leaving for his
office when his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door
and called him back to deliver the message.

He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall have
to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Will
you write and say it's all right?"

Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against
which she leaned.

"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked.

"I--why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his
surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find
words.

"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--"

"Well?"

"I told you last week that they didn't please me."

"Last week? Oh--" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought you
were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day."

"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--"

"My assurance?"

Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair
with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her
like straws down a whirling flood.

"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I hate it?"

He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and
sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently.

She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument.

"I can't bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were like
the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other
afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming
that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they
were tired--or had seen some one else--"

Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet.

"You _have_ ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke off.
"You no longer believe that husbands and wives _are_ justified in
separating--under such conditions?"

"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes--I still believe that--but
how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances