be as well, then,
to indicate to that gentleman what course should be pursued.

"You have some plan to recommend to her?" said Mr. Moore, putting the
tongs away and seating himself. He held out his long hands as if to
warm them a little by the flame, and looked at Winthrop inquiringly.

"No, I don't know that I have. But she is sure to be obstinate in any
case." He too sat down, and stared moodily at the flame.

"You think it will be a great grief to her," observed the clergyman,
after a while. "No doubt--no doubt."

"No grief at all, as far as that goes. Lanse has always treated her
abominably." He paused. Then continued, as if there were now good
reasons for telling the whole tale. "Before he had been married a year,
he left her, she did not leave him, as my aunt supposes; he went abroad,
and would not allow her to come to him. There had never been the least
fault on her side; there hasn't been up to this day."

"I cannot understand such fickleness, such dark tendencies towards
change," said Mr. Moore, in rebuking wonder.

"As far as regards change, I ought to say, perhaps, that there hasn't
been much of that," Winthrop answered. "What took him abroad was an old
interest--something he had felt long before his marriage, and felt
strongly; he has never changed in that respect."

"Do you allude--is it possible that you are alluding to an interest in a
_person_?" asked Mr. Moore, in a lowered tone.

"It certainly wasn't a thing; I hardly think you would call a beautiful
French woman of rank that, would you?"

Mr. Moore looked at him with a stricken face. "A beautiful French woman
of rank!" he murmured.

"That's what is taking him abroad now, this second time. She threw him
over once, but she has evidently called him back; in fact, he admits it
in his letter to me."

"Oh, sin! sin!" said Middleton Moore, with the deepest sadness in his
voice. He leaned his head upon his hand and covered his eyes.

"I suppose so," answered Winthrop. "All the same, she is the only person
Lanse has ever cared for; for her and her alone he could be, and would
be if he had the chance, perhaps, unselfish; I almost think he could be
heroic. But, you see, he won't have the chance, because there's the
husband in the bush."

"Do you mean to say that this wretched creature is a _married_ woman?"
demanded the clergyman, aghast.

"Oh yes; it was her marriage, her leaving him in the lurch, that made
Lanse himself marry in the first plac