ld's usual cry when she's here. She's got it
into her head that the self she doesn't know is frightfully wicked, and
makes me miserable. I've tried over and over again to convince her, but
it's all nonsense."

He thought to himself: "She is coming back still full of this mortal,
heart-rending jealousy, and we shall have more painful scenes."

"Well, it's your business to say what I'm to do," insisted Tims. "I
don't think she'd have troubled to write if she'd found she could get
back altogether without my help; but the other one's grown a bit too
strong for her. Do you want Milly back?"

The remorseless Tims forced on Ian a plain question which in his own
mind he habitually sought to evade. He leaned back and shaded his eyes
with his hand. After a silence he spoke, low, as if with effort:

"I can't honestly say I want the change to happen just now, Miss Timson.
It means a great deal of agitation, a thorough upheaval of everything.
We have an extremely troublesome business on at the Merchants'
Guild--I've just come away from a four hours' meeting; and upon my word
I don't think I can stand a--domestic revolution at the same time. It
would utterly unfit me for my work."

He did not add that he had been looking forward to receiving helpful
counsel from Mildred, with her clear common-sense, seasoned with wit.

Tims wagged her head and stared in his face.

"Poor old M.!" she ejaculated, slowly.

Miss Timson still possessed the rare power of irritating Ian Stewart. He
grew restive.

"I suppose I am a selfish brute. Men always are, aren't they? But, after
all, my wife enjoys life in her present state at least as much as she
does in the other."

"Not for the same reason, dear boy," returned Tims. "Old M., bless her,
just lives for you. You don't imagine, do you, that Mildred cares about
you like that?"

Ian flushed slightly, and his face hardened.

"One can't very well discuss one's wife's feeling for one's self," he
said. "I believe I have every reason to be happy, however things are.
And I very much doubt, Miss Timson, whether you can really effect the
change in her in any way. At any rate, I'd rather you didn't try,
please. I'll have her moved to her room, where she'll most likely sleep
till to-morrow."

Tims bent over the sleeper. Then:

"I don't believe she will, somehow. You'd better leave her with me for
the present, and I'll let you know if anything happens."

He obeyed, and in a minute she heard the f