ss a counter. And as she
worked over the intricacies of this problem the word her husband had
applied to her action recurred to her--precipitate. No doubt Mr.
Wentworth, too, had thought her precipitate. Nearly every important act
of her life had been precipitate. But she was conscious in this instance
of no regret. Delay, she felt, would have killed her. Let her exile begin
at once.

She had scarcely finished luncheon when Mr. Wentworth was announced. For
reasons best known to himself he had come in person; and he handed her,
written on a card, the name of the Honourable David Beckwith.

"I'll have to confess I don't know much about him, Mrs. Spence," he said,
"except that he has been in Congress, and is one of the prominent lawyers
of that state."

The gift of enlisting sympathy and assistance was peculiarly Honora's.
And if some one had predicted that morning to Mr. Wentworth that before
nightfall he would not only have put a lady in distress on the highroad
to obtaining a western divorce (which he had hitherto looked upon as
disgraceful), but that likewise he would miss his train for Pride's
Crossing, buy the lady's tickets, and see her off at the South Station
for Chicago, he would have regarded the prophet as a lunatic. But that is
precisely what Mr. Wentworth did. And when, as her train pulled out,
Honora bade him goodby, she felt the tug at her heartstrings which comes
at parting with an old friend.

"And anything I can do for you here in the East, while--while you are out
there, be sure to let me know," he said.

She promised and waved at him from the platform as he stood motionless,
staring after her. Romance had spent a whole day in Boston! And with Mr.
Alden Wentworth, of all people!

Fortunately for the sanity of the human race, the tension of grief is
variable. Honora, closed in her stateroom, eased herself that night by
writing a long, if somewhat undecipherable, letter to Chiltern; and was
able, the next day, to read the greater portion of a novel. It was only
when she arrived in Chicago, after nightfall, that loneliness again
assailed her. She was within nine hours--so the timetable said--of St.
Louis! Of all her trials, the homesickness which she experienced as she
drove through the deserted streets of the metropolis of the Middle West
was perhaps the worst. A great city on Sunday night! What traveller has
not felt the depressing effect of it? And, so far as the incoming
traveller is concerned,