much in earnest that I would be ready to swear that not another person
will ever know the story but you and I and he. No, it is a real thing
with him; he's dead in love, and it's your duty as a Christian to help
him."

There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Blandford remained by the cabinet,
methodically arranging some small articles displaced by the return of
the book. "Well," she said, suddenly, "you don't tell me what mother had
to say. Of course, as you came home earlier than you expected, you had
time to stop THERE--only four doors from this house."

"Well, no, Joan," replied Blandford, in awkward discomfiture. "You see I
met Dick first, and then--then I hurried here to you--and--and--I clean
forgot it. I'm very sorry," he added, dejectedly.

"And I more deeply so," she returned, with her previous bloodless moral
precision, "for she probably knows by this time, Edward, why you have
omitted your usual Sabbath visit, and with WHOM you were."

"But I can pull on my boots again and run in there for a moment," he
suggested, dubiously, "if you think it necessary. It won't take me a
moment."

"No," she said, positively; "it is so late now that your visit would
only show it to be a second thought. I will go myself--it will be a call
for us both."

"But shall I go with you to the door? It is dark and sleeting,"
suggested Blandford, eagerly.

"No," she replied, peremptorily. "Stay where you are, and when Ezekiel
and Bridget come in send them to bed, for I have made everything fast in
the kitchen. Don't wait up for me."

She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head to
foot in an enormous plaid shawl. A white woollen scarf thrown over her
bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her
face from view. When she had parted from her husband, and reached the
darkened hall below, she drew from beneath the folds of her shawl a
thick blue veil, with which she completely enveloped her features. As
she opened the front door and peered out into the night, her own husband
would have scarcely recognized her.

With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down
the street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth house.
Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at the closed
windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with
one hand and sped away from both, never stopping until she reached the
door of the Independence Hotel