t, "it has taken a long time to get
at him. Two years, isn't it, since you threw him over for a better man?"

"Oh, I'm not so sure of your being a better man, Bertie; I liked you
better----"

Mr. Burton Henderson accepted his wife's amendment with complacency.

"I don't believe Weatheral appreciated the distinction. Men like that
have a sort of money crust that prevents the ordinary perceptions from
getting through to them." This illustration appeared on second thoughts
so illuminating that it carried him a little further. "Perhaps that's
the reason it has taken him so long to tumble after he has been hit; it
has just got through to him. It would be interesting to know, though, if
he is still a little in love with you."

There was a fair amount of speculation in Mr. Burton Henderson's tone
that did not appear to have its seat in any apprehension.

"Just as if you rather hoped it," his wife protested.

"Well, I was only wondering if his health is so bad as the papers
say--it seldom is, you know--but if he were to go off all of a sudden
one of these days, whether he mightn't take it into his head now to
leave you a legacy."

"I don't believe it was personal enough with Peter for that. It wasn't
me he wanted so much as just to be married. And, besides, I did come
down on him rather hard." Mrs. Burton Henderson smiled a little
reminiscently as if she still saw herself in the process of coming down
on Peter and thought rather well of it.

"Well, anyway," her husband finished, "we could have managed with a
legacy."

"Yes, we do need money dreadfully, don't we, Bertie?" she sighed. "But I
don't believe I had anything to do with it."

That was all very well for Mrs. Burton Henderson, but Peter's sister
Ellen had a different opinion. "Peter," she had said the evening after
Peter had sent his trunk out of the house and locked up his suitcase to
keep her from putting anything more into it, "you're not thinking of
_her_, are you? You're not going to take that abroad with you."

"No, Ellen, I haven't thought of her for a long time except to wish her
happiness. You mustn't let that worry you."

"Just the same," said Ellen, "if anything happens to you over there--if
you never come back to me, I shall never forgive her."

"I shall come back. I am sorry you should feel so bitter about it."

He could not, especially now that it was gone, very well explain to
Ellen about the House; for all the years that it had stood there