as
his wife. When she considered the feeling of her family and her
friends, she knew that, though some would go through the formal
deploring that Henry had not better birth, all would be satisfied and
more than satisfied; they would even boast about Henry a little, and
entertain him in her honor, and show him off. There was no one--now
that poor Uncle Benny was gone--who would seriously deplore it at all.

Constance had recognized no relic of uneasiness from Uncle Benny's last
appeal to her; she understood that thoroughly. Or, at least, she _had_
understood that; now was there a change in the circumstances of that
understanding, because of what had happened to Alan, that she found
herself re-defining to herself her relation with Henry? No; it had
nothing to do with Henry, of course; it referred only to Benjamin
Corvet. Uncle Benny had "gone away" from his house on Astor Street,
leaving his place there to his son, Alan Conrad. Something which had
disturbed and excited Alan had happened to him on the first night he
had passed in that house; and now, it appeared, he had been prevented
from passing a second night there. What had prevented him had been an
attempted robbery upon the street, her father had said. But suppose it
had been something else than robbery.

She could not formulate more definitely this thought, but it persisted;
she could not deny it entirely and shake it off.

To Alan Conrad, in the late afternoon of that day, this same thought
was coming far more definitely and far more persistently. He had been
awake and sane since shortly after noonday. The pain of a head which
ached throbbingly and of a body bruised and sore was beginning to give
place to a feeling merely of lassitude--a languor which revisited
incoherence upon him when he tried to think. He shifted himself upon
his bed and called the nurse.

"How long am I likely to have to stay here?" he asked her.

"The doctors think not less than two weeks, Mr. Conrad."

He realized, as he again lay silent, that he must put out of his head
now all expectation of ever finding in Corvet's house any such record
as he had been looking for. If there had been a record, it
unquestionably would be gone before he could get about again to seek
it; and he could not guard against its being taken from the house; for,
if he had been hopeless of receiving credence for any accusation he
might make against Spearman while he was in health, how much more
hopel