er truth of his wife's speech. For the
moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical and
selfish affection, but he reflected that he had married this religious
girl for the security of an affection which he felt was not subject to
the temptations of the world--or even its own weakness--as was too often
the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorest's
companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this
distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he
suddenly resolved to confide to her the latter's fatuous folly.

"I know it, dear," he said, apologetically, "and we'll talk it over
to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall go
with me. But, speaking of Demorest, I think you don't quite do HIM
justice. He really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge of right
and wrong more than you imagine. I actually believe he came here
to-night merely to get me to interest you in an extraordinary love
affair of his. I mean, Joan," he added hastily, seeing the same look of
dull repression come over her face, "I mean, Joan--that is, you know,
from all I can judge--it is something really serious this time. He
intends to reform. And this is because he has become violently smitten
with a young woman whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long
intervals, whom he first met in a railway train, and whose name and
residence he don't even know."

There was an ominous silence--so hushed that the ticking of the
allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. "Then," said Mrs. Blandford,
in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized,
"he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful
confidence."

"Good heavens! Joan, no--you don't understand. At the worst, this is
some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending
only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and
deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest,
and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he."

"Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man
whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in the
street--expects me to advise him--to--to--" She stopped. Blandford could
scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in her eyes--this woman
who never cried; her voice trembled--she who had always controlled her
emotions.

He took advantage of this