ored driving cloak down to
her heels, and a charming hat--yet under it a face still years older
than the one he wore in his heart, though no less beautiful in its
distress.

"I hardly dare ask you!" she gasped, her hand trembling in his. "Have
you found out--anything at all?"

"A little."

And he opened his hand so that hers must drop.

"Oh, but anything is better than nothing! Come in and tell me--quick!"

"Bravo!" added an amused voice from the porch.

It was Steel, spruce and serene as ever, a pink glow upon his mobile
face, a pink flower in his reefer jacket, a jaunty Panama straw covering
his white hairs, and buckskin shoes of kindred purity upon his small and
well-shaped feet. Langholm greeted him in turn, only trusting that the
tremors which had been instantly communicated to his own right hand
might not be detected by the one it was now compelled to meet.

"I came to tell Mr. Steel," said Langholm, a little lamely.

"Excellent!" murmured that gentleman, with his self-complacent smile.

"But am I not to hear also?" demanded Rachel.

"My dear Mrs. Steel, there is very little to tell you as yet. I only
wish there were more. But one or two little points there are--if you
would not mind my first mentioning them to your husband?"

"Oh, of course."

There was no pique in the tone. There was only disappointment--and
despair.

"You manage a woman very prettily," remarked Steel, as they watched the
phaeton diminish down the drive like a narrow Roman road.

"You are the first who ever said so," rejoined the novelist, with a
rather heavy sigh.

"Well, let us have a cigar and your news. I confess I am interested. A
stroll, too, would be pleasanter than sitting indoors, don't you think?
The thickest walls have long ears, Langholm, when every servant in the
place is under notice. The whole lot? Oh, dear, yes--every mother's son
and daughter of them. It is most amusing; every one of them wants to
stay and be forgiven. The neighbors are little better. The excuses they
have stooped to make, some of them! I suppose they thought that we
should either flee the country or give them the sanguinary satisfaction
of a double suicide. Well, we are not going to do either one or the
other; we are agreed about that, if about nothing else. And my wife has
behaved like a trump, though she wouldn't like to hear me say so; it is
her wish that we should sit tighter than if nothing had happened, and
not even go to Switzerland as