he left him! Why?"

"Why did you leave him, Electra, before he went over there? Why did you
give up living in town, and simply retreat down here? You couldn't stand
it. Nobody could. Tom was a bad egg, Electra. I don't need to tell you
that."

"It is certainly painful for me to hear it."

"But why, why, Electra? I can't stultify myself to prove this poor girl
an adventuress. I can't canonize Tom Fulton, not even if you ask me."

"There are things we need not recur to. My brother is dead," said
Electra, with dignity.

"Yes. That's precisely why I am asking you to provide for his widow."

"Suppose, then, this were true. Suppose she is what you say,--don't you
feel she forfeited anything by leaving him?"

"Ah, but she went back, poor girl! She went back to him when he was
pretty well spent with sickness and sheer fright. Tom didn't die like a
hero, Electra. Get that out of your mind."

She put up both hands in an unconsidered protest.

"Oh, what is the use!" she cried; and his heart smote him.

"None at all," he answered. "But I mean to show you that this girl
didn't walk back to any dead easy job when she undertook Tom."

"Why did she do it?"

"Why? From humanity, justice, honor, I suppose, the things that
influence women when they stick to their bad bargains."

"Where had she been meantime?"

"With her father, in lodgings. That was where I met her."

"Was she known by my brother's name?"

"No," he hesitated, "not then. I knew her as Miss MacLeod."

"Ah!"

"I can see why," Peter declared, with an eager emphasis. "I never
thought of it before, but can't you see? I should think a woman could,
at least. The whole situation was probably so distasteful to her that
she threw off even his name."

"And assumed it after his death!"

"No! no! She was called Madame Fulton at his apartment. I distinctly
remember that."

They had been immovably facing each other, but now Electra turned away
and walked back to the library table, where she stood resting one hand
and waiting, pale and tired, yet unchanged. This seemed to her one of
the times that try men's souls, but wherein a New England conscience
must abide by its traditions.

"How long does she propose remaining?" she asked, out of her desire to
put some limit to the distasteful situation, though she had forbidden
herself to enter it with even that human interest.

"Why, as long as we ask her to stay,--you, or, if she is not to expect
anything from you,