sit down?" Beth said coldly. "You cannot wonder if I am
surprised to see you. This is the first visit you have paid me,
although we met directly after I came to Slane some years ago. You
were kind and cordial on that occasion, but the next time I saw
you--at that ball--you slighted me; and after that you shunned me
until I met you the other day at Mrs. Carne's, and then you seemed
inclined to take me up again. I do not understand such caprices, and I
do not like them."

"It was not caprice," Mrs. Kilroy assured her. "I liked you very much
the first time we met, and I should have called immediately; but when
I asked for your address, I was told that your husband was in charge
of the Lock Hospital----"

"Yes, the hospital for the diseases of women," Beth said. "But what
difference does that make?"

"It made me jump to the hasty conclusion that you approved of the
degradation of your own sex," said Angelica.

"The degradation of my own sex!" said Beth bewildered. "What is a Lock
Hospital?"

Angelica explained the whole horrible apparatus for the special
degradation of women.

"Now perhaps you will understand what we felt about you," Angelica
concluded--"we who are loyal to our own sex, and have a sense of
justice--when we thought you were content to live on the means your
husband makes in such a shameful way."

An extraordinary look of relief came into Beth's face. "Then it was
not my fault--not because I was horrid," she exclaimed. All the
slights were as nothing the moment she gathered that she had not
deserved them. Angelica stared at her. But it was not in Beth's nature
to think long about herself; only the full force of what she had just
heard as it concerned others did not come to her for some seconds.
When it did, she was overcome. "How could you suppose that I knew?"
she gasped at last. "This is the first hint I have had of the
loathsome business. My husband talks to me about--many things that he
had better not have mentioned--but about this he has never said a
word."

"Then he must have suspected that you would disapprove," said Mrs.
Kilroy.

"Disapprove!" Beth ejaculated. "The whole thing makes me sick. I ought
to have been told before I married him. I never would have spoken to a
man in such a position had I known. You did well to avoid me."

"No," said Angelica. "I did ill, and I feel humiliated for my own want
of penetration--for my hasty conclusion. It was Sir George Galbraith
who first made m