pered.
"Never forget that."

"You're,--you're a good woman, Alice; I'm not worthy of you, my dear."

It pained her exquisitely to see him so humble.... Wait until she met
Joan. She should be made to pay the price for this! "Who cares?" had
been her cry. How many others had she made to care?

"I'll go back to Mrs. Jekyll now," she went on, almost afraid that
things were running too well to be true, "and stay at Southampton
to-night. To-morrow I'll return to New York and have everything packed
and ready by the time you join me there. And I'll send a telegram to
Captain Stewart to expect us on Friday. Then we'll go to sea and be
alone and get refreshment from the wide spaces and the clean air."

"Just as you say," he said, patting her hand. He was terribly like a
boy who had slipped and fallen.

Then she got up, nearer to a breakdown than ever before. It was such a
queer reversal of their old positions. And in order that he shouldn't
rise she put her hands on his shoulders and stood close to him so that
his head was against her breast.

"God bless you, dearest boy," she said softly. "Trust in me. Give all
your troubles to me. I'm your wife, and I need them. They belong to me.
They're mine. I took them all over when you gave me my ring." She
lifted his face that was worn as from a consuming fire and kissed his
unresponsive lips. "Stay here," she added, "and I'll go back. To-morrow
then, in New York."

He echoed her. "To-morrow then, in New York," and held her hand against
his forehead.

Just once she looked back, saw him bent double and stopped. A prophetic
feeling that she was never to hear his voice again seized her in a cold
grip,--but she shook it off and put a smile on her face with which to
stand before the scandal-mongers.

And there stood Joan, looking as though she had seen a ghost.

XV

Alice marched up to her, blazing with anger and indignation. She was
not, at that moment, the gentle Alice, as everybody called her,
Alice-sit-by-the-fire, equable and pacific, believing the best of
people. She was the mother-woman eager to revenge the hurt that had
been done to one who had all her love.

"Ah," she said, "you're just in time for me to tell you what I think of
you."

"Whatever you may think of me," replied Joan, "is nothing to what I
think of myself."

But Alice was not to be diverted by that characteristic way of evading
hard words, as she thought it. She had seen Joan dodge the issues li