scale. She has
asked us--"

"No, it's too much," he interrupted. "What I told her--told her about
him--no, I will have it out at last. Agnes!"

"Yes?" said his wife, raising her eyes from Mrs. Jackson's formal
invitation.

"It's you--it's you. I never mentioned him to her. Why, I've never seen
her or written to her since. I accuse you."

Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed. He was asked what he meant.
Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. Each time he
spoke more feebly, and before long the brother and sister were laughing
at him. He felt bewildered, like a boy who knows that he is right but
cannot put his case correctly. He repeated, "I've never mentioned him to
her. It's a libel. Never in my life." And they cried, "My dear Rickie,
what an absurd fuss!" Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter
that his wife had received from his aunt, and he reopened the battle.

"Agnes, give me that letter, if you please."

"Mrs. Jackson's?"

"My aunt's."

She put her hand on it, and looked at him doubtfully. She saw that she
had failed to bully him.

"My aunt's letter," he repeated, rising to his feet and bending over the
table towards her.

"Why, dear?"

"Yes, why indeed?" echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but from a
purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and
wife. It was not the first time he had intervened.

"The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done. I
believe you have ruined Stephen. You have worked at it for two years.
You have put words into my mouth to 'turn the scale' against him. He
goes to Canada--and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said
before--I advise you to stop smiling--you have gone a little too far."

They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table. Agnes
said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the
letter. When her husband snatched at it she resisted, and with the
effect of a harlequinade everything went on the floor--lamb, mint
sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. At once they were swamped in
domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters
were brought, broken crockery (a wedding present) picked up from the
carpet; while he stood wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured
sun's decline.

"I MUST see her letter," he repeated, when the agitation was over. He
was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight em