hite as
death, in the gaslight. The very sight of that rich garment made him
faint.

The mistake he had made had a silencing effect upon Stacy too. He had no
wish that the history of that garment should be produced, and when his
wife was about to speak, silenced her at once.

"My dear Harriet," he said, "how often have I told you that talking at a
theater or the operer is awfully vulgar. I wonder you can persist in
it, and Mr. Hepworth by. Just listen to that music! Haven't you no
taste? If you haven't, just take a look around the boxes. That young
feller there is the Prince of Wales."

Mrs. Stacy took a mother-of-pearl opera glass from her lap, and
obediently turned it upon the royal box.

Before the performance was over, and while Hepworth was drawn back, in
spite of himself, to the most painful scenes of his life, an usher came
down the nearest passage, and put a little twisted note into his hand.
It was from Olympia, inviting him to supper the next evening.

Hepworth crushed the pretty missive in his hand, while he turned to send
a verbal refusal, but the usher had withdrawn, and he had no other way
of sending a reply that night.

The opera was at its close now, and Hepworth left the house, irritated
and restless. Could he find no place in which this miserable past would
not haunt him? He had hardly made his way through the crowd when his arm
was seized, and Stacy almost wheeled him around on the pavement.

"My dear sir, this way. Mrs. Stacy is already in the carriage. Of course
we would not ride and let you go afoot. Have been a poor man myself
once--needn't deny that to you. Know what it is to keep up a show
without capital. But no old friend of mine shall go afoot while I have
the wherewith to pay for a carriage, and an empty seat in it. Shall set
in the back seat with Mrs. Stacy, upon my soul you shall, and that's an
honor I don't offer to every man. Now just tell me where you are putting
up."

Hepworth laughed, in spite of his annoyance. The patronizing fussiness
of the ex-alderman struck a keen sense of the ridiculous, which was
strong in his character.

"If you insist," he said. "But you are too generous."

"Not at all, not at all. When Alderman Stacy does a thing, he does it
handsomely. This way, this way!"

Hepworth seated himself in the carriage where Mrs. Stacy squeezed
herself in one corner, and gathered up her skirts to make room for him,
and Stacy had his foot on the step, when a new post