social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed
this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective
understanding about the wedding-day; but when, in the thick of her
troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the Goldsworthy
marriage as a personal affront, and, as it were, to tax her with it,
then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him.

As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to
pass the door of a sitting-room with the dust of travel on him; he
could not shake hands with equanimity until he had restored his person
and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the
restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared on this
occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman
in the world--the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of her
own fastidious taste--walking in to her where she awaited him, in the
morning-room, herself 'groomed' to match, with as much care as she had
taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than how to dress
to please him.

He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him as to a rock in a
weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual
self-abandonment.

"Oh, darling!" she breathed, in that delicious voice of hers, "it is
good to see you. I have wanted you so badly."

"I am sorry I did not come before," he replied, kissing her gravely.
"Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl."

"Ah, poor girl! Do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Keziah
has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of
her mind."

"I should think so--and everybody else too, apparently. What were you
all about, Debbie, not to see this Goldsworthy affair going on under
your noses?"

"It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie Carey--until now."

"I am told"--it was Frances who had told him in the passage just
now--"that she refused Carey only the day before."

"She did."

"In order to make a runaway match with this parson fellow. The facts
speak for themselves."

"Ah!" sighed Deb, turning to the tea-table, "I expect we don't know all
the facts."

She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Frances knew,
and providentially they had been able to keep the episode of the dam
out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary herself, her
husband, her father, and this one siste