shrugged their shoulders. Was the man
completely under his wife's thumb; or, tired of her, was he playing some
devil's game of his own? To most of his acquaintances the latter
explanation seemed the more plausible.

The gossip, in due course, reached the parental home. Mrs. Eppington
shook the vials of her wrath over the head of her son-in-law. The
father, always a cautious man, felt inclined to blame his child for her
want of prudence.

"She'll ruin everything," he said. "Why the devil can't she be careful?"

"I believe the man is deliberately plotting to get rid of her," said Mrs.
Eppington. "I shall tell him plainly what I think."

"You're a fool, Hannah," replied her husband, allowing himself the
licence of the domestic hearth. "If you are right, you will only
precipitate matters; if you are wrong, you will tell him what there is no
need for him to know. Leave the matter to me. I can sound him without
giving anything away, and meanwhile you talk to Edith."

So matters were arranged, but the interview between mother and daughter
hardly improved the position. Mrs. Eppington was conventionally moral;
Edith had been thinking for herself, and thinking in a bad atmosphere.
Mrs. Eppington, grew angry at the girl's callousness.

"Have you no sense of shame?" she cried.

"I had once," was Edith's reply, "before I came to live here. Do you
know what this house is for me, with its gilded mirrors, its couches, its
soft carpets? Do you know what I am, and have been for two years?"

The elder woman rose, with a frightened pleading look upon her face, and
the other stopped and turned away towards the window.

"We all thought it for the best," continued Mrs. Eppington meekly.

The girl spoke wearily without looking round.

"Oh! every silly thing that was ever done, was done for the best. _I_
thought it would be for the best, myself. Everything would be so simple
if only we were not alive. Don't let's talk any more. All you can say
is quite right."

The silence continued for a while, the Dresden-china clock on the
mantelpiece ticking louder and louder as if to say, "I, Time, am here. Do
not make your plans forgetting me, little mortals; I change your thoughts
and wills. You are but my puppets."

"Then what do you intend to do?" demanded Mrs. Eppington at length.

"Intend! Oh, the right thing of course. We all intend that. I shall
send Harry away with a few well-chosen words of farewell, learn to l