"I say, Mrs. Maguire, can't you hear me?"

Jack thrust his head through the narrow opening of his bedroom door and shouted for his ancient laundress, who was always in the way except when wanted.

"Did you call, sir?" inquired a pale woman with a thin voice, as she shuffled into the sitting room, which adjoined the bedroom. "I've got a nasty return of my last winter's cold. I'm a bit deaf on the left side, sir--the side what's mostly against your door, sir."

"Sorry you're not well, Mrs. Maguire, but I want you to give me a little extra time this morning. You see, I've a friend coming to tea--a very particular friend--er--ah--a lady, and I want the place to look clean, tidy, and decent. It isn't what a lady would call clean, Mrs. Maguire."

"If I can't satisfy you, sir, there's plenty others waiting for my services. I know my business, sir. Twenty years come Michaelmas, and never no complaint before. Not clean!"

"Oh, lor'!" sighed Jack, as he waited for the lady to pause for want of breath. "You quite misunderstand me. What I mean is this: I want all my old bits of things to look like new this afternoon--polished and all that--and some flowers and plants put into the vases."

"Oh, if that's what you want why didn't you say so at first? And before you goes out, sir, if you could give me the money to get the flowers, being, as it were, a bit short. It's nearin' the end of the week."

"Right you are, here's a sovereign. Get some cakes and things, and--yes--better buy a pot of jam. Ladies like jam sandwiches--don't they? Sort of afternoon tea is what I want for--for a lady. My aunt, you know."

"Oh, indeed, sir, your aunt. It's wonderful how fond of the Temple the ladies is. But there's many stairs, if she's elderly."

"Yes, yes; get on with the preparations and clear out by two at least."

"I'll be finished, sir, never fear. Mr. Newbolt below is going at two to-day, and I've got to clean his stairs, so I shall be 'andy if you should want me."

Jack said angry things internally and retreated. But he was soon singing and whistling with amazing light-heartedness, and brushing his hair with unwonted vigor. This was the great day that was to bring the wife of his bosom home to the domestic--and much-neglected--hearth.

His chambers in the Temple were not particularly luxurious or artistic. They could hardly be said to reflect the man, because the general design was some hundreds of years old, and the furniture, though of less antiquity, showed signs of wear by a previous tenant. It is not possible to impress one's personality upon a second-hand tenement without fair time and a clean sweep of the previous owner's leavings.

Jack spent as little time there as possible--much less time, perhaps, than his future career needed. But all that would be altered. Mabel would come, and with one touch of her magic fingers transform the place into a paradise. She was to bring in the sunshine, and not be shocked at the paucity of the furniture for the sun to shine upon. There was one easy chair, certainly, and a horsehair sofa that would support one person when the hollow in the centre was filled with a cushion. There was a charming old window much in need of cleaning, a mantel shelf loaded with pipes, and papers, and china ornaments that were once worth sixpence-halfpenny each. Several pictures were pinned upon the wall, and the large pedestal desk looked like business; but the mass of documents upon it allowed no room for the breakfast tray, which, perforce, stood upon a rickety card table in a dark corner.

Mrs. Maguire did her best--or her worst--with the place, and Jack was beginning to count the hours to the time of Mabel's expected arrival. He stood in the centre of the sitting room with a feeling that it was not altogether gay. Despite the flowers, which he had rearranged himself rather clumsily, and the clean white tablecloth with two large holes in it, and the pile of stale restaurant pastry that was to tempt the appetite of his "maiden aunt," there was no air of festivity about the place. An extra vigorous sweeping of the carpets had caused the dust to settle on everything, and Jack thought with dismay of Mabel's white muslin, fully expecting her to appear as he had seen her last and continue exactly where they had left off.

His heart was throbbing almost painfully when the actual hour arrived and passed by. He listened for her step on the stairs, and inwardly cursed Mrs. Maguire's scrubbing brush. Presently there was a pause in the stair washing, murmuring apologies from Mrs. Maguire, and a light, quick step.

It was she at last.

He flung wide the door, and wanted to shout like a school boy. His arms instinctively spread out to receive his wife with a great, joyous hug, but he received a check when a dark-clad figure, with a pale face and great woebegone eyes speaking nervous terror, came faltering towards him.

"My darling!" he cried, and folded her to his heart. "Welcome, little wife! Why, what----"

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Maguire, ten stairs below, despite her deafness. "Little wife, eh? Another of them hussies! He's as bad as the rest."

"So you have come," he cried, as he closed the door. But his voice dropped; he was chilled.

"Jack," she quavered, without so much as looking round at his festive preparations. "I have come, but I am going away again. I must go--at once."

"Go at once, darling! But why? What have you come for?"

"Only to go away again, Jack--only to say good-bye."

"Come to say good-bye!" gasped Jack, in dull amazement.

He was not quite sure of her meaning.

She turned her eyes to his face piteously. "Yes, Jack, you'll be surprised, and shocked, and heart-broken, and angry, I know. But I can't stay. I must get back at once. I oughtn't to have been seen here. That horrid woman on the stairs was quite rude to me, and told me you were expecting your aunt, and I'd better not go up."

"Oh, that's all right!" laughed Jack. "I thought to stifle her curiosity and get her out of the way by a fiction. You are the aunt. But why this state of excitement? What has happened?"

"Jack, you'll think it very strange; but I can't tell you what has happened. Things are different with me. I'm not the person I was--or rather, I thought I was. We made an awful mistake in not taking Lady Hester's advice. Oh, Jack, I have ruined you. But it is not too late."

"Ruined me? What do you mean? Have they found out at home?"

"No, not at your home."

"Ah, at yours? Pshaw! Papa turned up rusty? Well, we'll soon talk him over."

"My father doesn't know, Jack. God forbid that he should."

"Then what is there to worry about?"

"Jack, Jack, I am almost crazy! I've thought everything out from every point of view until I'm nearly mad. Our marriage was a mistake--a hideous, awful mistake."

"Mabel!"

"Nobody knows but Tom Nestor, and he must be sworn to silence. Nobody knows. Nobody ever must know. It's for your good, Jack. You're a man, and you've got to live and make a career for yourself. You mustn't be ruined by--oh, how can I tell you!--I can't tell you--I can't--I simply can't!"

"Look here, little girl, you're upset and talking in riddles. Come here--let me put my arms about you and sober you. You're excited."

"Jack, Jack, I am heartbroken. You don't understand. I've really come to say good-bye--no, don't touch me. Keep away! I can't bear it."

"Oh, if it's like that, I'll hear your explanation from the hearthrug," observed Jack, rather testily. He took up his position in front of the mantelpiece and rammed his hands into his trousers pockets. "Come now, what is it? What have I done? What have you done? What has happened?"

Mabel sat with writhing hands clasped in her lap, shoulders bent, and eyes cast on the ground. She wrestled manfully with her torturing sorrow, yet true to the quixotic resolution she had made, to keep her own counsel. She had nerved herself to face Jack and deny him so much as a touch of the hand lest she should break down in hopeless despair.

"Jack, I know you'll think me strange--mad, if you like, but I can't explain. I am not the person I thought I was. My father is not the man I imagined. I don't know who my mother was, and whether I have a right to the name I bear. I am nobody--nothing--worse than nothing. I should bring discredit upon you. Your father would never forgive me, and Lady Hester--ah, well, Lady Hester might understand. But we must part, Jack. Yes, don't look at me like that, as though you were amused. It is breaking my heart, but it will have to come, and better now than later, when people had found out and I had compromised you by--by coming here, for instance."

Jack's face grew serious. The tragedy in Mabel's eyes was too real. The determination of her little mouth was grim and threatening.

"Look here, Mabel, I see you're upset, and it's no good my being angry with you. But I'd prepared tea and got the place ready for your homecoming, and was looking forward to a jolly, happy time, when you burst upon me with mystery and threats that stagger a chap. Take off your hat, little girl, and settle down and recover your balance. Here's a nice, comfortable chair I've had recovered for you. As for saying good-bye--well--it's all tommyrot, you know. There can be no earthly reason for a husband and wife to part unless love is dead and they are sick of one another. Even then they don't generally part until one or the other has had too much of it. And we haven't begun."

"Oh, if I had only known!" sobbed Mabel, bursting into tears at last, and burying her face in her hands. Her grief was so tumultuous that Jack caught his breath in alarm and stood staring helplessly.

"What's the matter, Mabel? What have I done? You can't have repented in this short time. Why, how many hours is it since we parted in Kensington Gardens? Explain yourself. Here, don't cry. Tell me what you want. What is it? You've no business to keep me in the dark. Look here, Mabel, I say, don't cry like that, for God's sake! I don't know what on earth to do or say to comfort you."

He dropped on one knee before her and tried to draw her to him. But she shrank away. "No, no, don't touch me. It is all over. It must be. It is your only chance, Jack. It isn't too late. You've got to forget me."

"But we're married."

"Yes. I know. But I never intend to be your wife."

"Never intend? Why?"

"I cannot explain, Jack. It would only mean needless misery for me and sorrow and disgrace for you."

"Needless misery for you? Is your love for me dead, then?"

"Y--yes."

"Oh, that's comforting. You seem to have arrived at that frame of mind rather quickly."

He returned to the hearthrug pale with anger and mortification.

"Jack, I--I am a disgraceful person. You would be ashamed of me. You could never own me. You would be ruined socially, and in time you would come to despise me."

Jack scratched his head and showed signs of rising temper. He kicked away the hassock beside the armchair, and took a turn up and down the room.

"I know you've a right to be angry," faltered Mabel, raising a trembling hand. "You will think dreadful things of me, and there will come a time when you'll curse the day we ever met; we mustn't meet again."

"Mabel, you're talking nonsense," cried Jack, with gathering anger in his fine eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, Jack, I can't bear it. I don't want you to think hardly of me. It is not altogether my fault."

"Is it mine, then?" he blazed out. "What have I done in heaven's name that my wife comes to me in this amazing, sensational fashion, and coolly tells me that I must regard my marriage as nothing, and forget her, and go through life as though I'd never known the love of a wife. At last, I thought I'd known it. Were you playing with me? Did you treat it as a joke? Do you suppose the bond tied by Tom Nestor isn't really binding?"

"People have married before," she faltered, "and have lived to regret it, and parted, and--and the mere ceremony can't much matter to a man after the first twinge of sorrow is over, especially if the woman never raises her voice to say a word, or admits that she is his wife. I've thought it all out, Jack. I am impossible to you as a wife. Your family would disown me. It is good-bye."

"You appal me."

Poor Jack felt cold shudders down his back, as he saw the implacable earnestness in his wife's face. She meant what she said, and he knew enough of her already to understand that she had a will of her own when her emotions were roused.

"Jack, you wouldn't like them to say that you had married an adventuress?"

"An adventuress?"

"Yes, and the daughter of an adventurer. You think my father is a gentleman--oh, I can't, I can't tell you. Those four days at Weybury were the happiest in my life."

"Mabel, you don't mean it!" cried Jack, triumphantly, in accents of real relief. He rushed to her and folded her in his arms.

"Don't!" she groaned, as though his touch were agony. "I shall never know happiness again. I must forget the past."

He clasped her to his heart and pressed hot kisses on her cheeks. "Mabel, you've been hiding something from me, something I ought to know. But I don't care. You are mine--mine! I love you. You are my little wife, and I've got you here imprisoned in my arms and you cannot escape me. I don't believe your stories. You love me. There was no sham. Kiss me, darling. You are in my arms. We're here alone, away from all the world, and whatever your trouble is, it is mine."

"Let me go!" she gasped, thrusting herself away from him whitefaced and terrified as though his lips were afire. "Let me go! I'm too horrible and loathy. I am a living fraud. I can never look again into the faces of those who have been kind to me--and you, Jack, you'll drive me to kill myself if you don't let me go. Let me go, I tell you. You are killing me."

"I won't. I won't!" he cried passionately, holding her to him in a grasp of steel.

"Jack, you shan't!" she screamed in a wild outburst of hysterical frenzy. A mad cry that was almost a shriek escaped her lips, and Jack's blood ran cold. He released her like a hot coal, for an instant, almost doubted her sanity.

The tense moment was startlingly relieved by a dull thud on the outer door. One heavy bang at the knocker was followed by another a trifle louder. It was Mrs. Maguire's accustomed summons, and usually heralded her imminent entry without further ceremony when Jack was alone--and the door was not locked. He had forgotten to turn the key, and Mrs. Maguire's head appeared with startling suddenness. Jack strode to the door with a curse upon his lips.

"What the----"

"Your aunt, sir," announced Mrs. Maguire calmly, quite unmoved by the outburst. "She's come. I told her that you was engaged for a few minutes; but she's got as far as the second landing, and says she finds the stairs so trying she'd be glad if you'd give her your arm."

"It's nobody for me, you idiot! Go away."

"Beg pardon, sir, she asked for you. 'Tell him it's Aunt Caroline,' she says; 'he doesn't expect me, but as I was passing I called,' and she ain't got no card."

"Aunt Caroline!" groaned Jack, vaguely recalling a long-forgotten promise of his aunt to visit him in his chambers and be shown over the Temple Church.

"She mustn't see me!" cried Mabel, recovering her equilibrium in the face of danger.

"No, miss, that's what I thought," observed Mrs. Maguire tartly. "She is trying the next flight, sir."

"Let me go," whispered Mabel appealingly.

"You can't go down; you'll meet her on the stairs," groaned Jack, and, of course, he fell back on the ancient and convenient expedient much beloved by writers of farce, and occasionally resorted to by bachelors and owners of chambers with limited accommodations. He pointed to the door of the inner room, and Mabel vanished.

Jack smoothed his ruffled hair, and tried to recover his balance and his breath. Surprise was following upon surprise so rapidly that it was not easy to assume composed features. He quite forgot to hide the evidences of festive preparations, but he was sufficiently a humbug to play his part well. As soon as he could control his voice and rearrange his tie he dashed down the staircase to greet his father's sister.

"Well, aunt, this is a surprise! How are you? Who'd have thought of expecting you?"

"Who'd thought of finding you at the top of so many stairs, Jack--and such dirty ones?" This with a withering look at draggled Mrs. Maguire, who sniffed her resentment.

"Is it much further up, Jack?"

"Only a few stairs, aunt. That's my door there, at the top."

"With your assistance I can--(puff)--get up. I'll never attempt it again."

"I wish you had not attempted it now," thought Jack, but he declared that it was very good of her to have tried.

"I was passing the Temple, and we drove through. When I saw the name Middle Temple Lane I remembered my promise to call, and yours to take me over the church. I think it's the only important church in London I have never yet seen, and I regard its inspection as a duty."

"It's a bad day to-day, aunt--that's right, only two more stairs--and--and if you're going over the church wouldn't you go before tea and save a double climb? I can soon get my hat and come down to you. Don't come any higher."

"What! struggle up these stairs again for tea? No, Jack, thank you. I suppose this person who attends to your comforts can make a cup of tea?"

"Oh, that'll be all right, aunt. Mind the bend, it's rather dangerous."

Aunt Caroline was a very severe, prim, upright old lady of more than medium height, good-looking in her way, but pallid, sharp-eyed, hook-nosed, and hawk-like. She was never strong, except in mind. She was dressed in a black, close-fitting costume, that displayed a figure still handsome. Her head was set upon her shoulders uncompromisingly, and her black chiffon bonnet was by no means frumpish, and harmonized well with her sombre appearance. A lady undoubtedly, but one of the old school that considers it bad form to bend the back and droop even in declining years. Her eyes usually missed nothing, and her tongue was nimble. Jack trembled inwardly as he led her into the sitting-room.

"Is this where you work and live?" she asked, pausing on the threshold and raising her forbidding pince-nez.

"Yes, aunt, this is my humble abode. Not very gorgeous--is it?"

"It looks comfortable enough. Humph! flowers. Never knew you were fond of flowers."

"Oh, yes, aunt--always," cried the truthful nephew eagerly; "always fond of flowers, but never took much trouble about the place--always did at Oxford. It relieves the gloom a bit--doesn't it. Sit down, aunt, and we'll get you some tea."

"I never saw any flowers at Oxford."

Aunt Caroline waved away the newly-covered armchair in favor of a hard, wooden-backed thing near the wall, from which point of vantage she could survey everything. Her eyes alighted first upon the holes in the table cloth, then she stared at the two cups and the plate of indigestible pastry, the thin bread-and-butter, cut by Jack himself--also full of holes--and at a wine-glass, from which a beautiful red rose drooped grace-fully, set beside one of the cups as a mark of favor to the expected guest.

For whom else but a woman?

Aunt Caroline was transfixed with astonishment and discreet horror, and it was a full minute before she could withdraw her frigid gaze--a minute of cold terror for Jack, whose brow grew clammy with the mental effort of groping in the mists of self-consciousness for a suitable remark to break the spell. Aunt Caroline came to his rescue adroitly with a cold, steely utterance.

"It is remarkably fine weather, Jack."

"Yes, aunt, awfully fine; so--so good for roses. Awfully fine weather for roses!" exclaimed Jack, repeating himself stupidly and putting a boisterous emphasis into his remarks, when Aunt Caroline's eyes turned once more to the wine-glass. "There's a chap comes here sometimes to tea with me who is awfully fond of roses. I picked that one out for him in case he should come."

"Then you are expecting him?" queried Aunt Caroline icily.

"Yes, he may turn up at any moment. But it is uncertain."

"And does he eat that peculiarly repulsive pastry?" She bent down and examined Mrs. Maguire's purchases through her lorgnette.

"Oh, he can eat anything. So can I."

"You have changed then, my boy. You used to be a particularly dainty feeder."

"Oh, you get cured of that in chambers, you know. Burnt bacon for breakfast and emaciated fried eggs."

Aunt Caroline looked at the clock, wondering mentally how long she could keep her carriage waiting in the hope of being on the spot when the gentleman with the cast-iron interior turned up. Jack busied himself with the kettle on the gas ring to hide his constraint. He knew perfectly well that Aunt Caroline did not believe a word he had said. The pause gave her eagle eye time to sweep the apartment, and in a moment she detected the presence of a thing under Jack's boot which a mere man would never notice--a woman's veil, light as gossamer. She gave a little snort, and Jack turned inquiringly.

"Did you speak, aunt?"

"No," she replied, with a sniff, again surveying her surroundings and diagnosing the building structure. "That must be his bedroom," she thought, "that the kitchen. If I stay here long enough I shall make myself very much in the way, and perhaps learn something."

Jack talked volubly about Ripley and the Temple, and churches, and everything likely to interest his aunt; but her answers were monosyllabic, and she fell into long abstractions with her eyes glued upon his bedroom door, as though her piercing gaze would penetrate the panels. He devoutly hoped that Mabel would not make a sound. Aunt Caroline paid very little attention to his conversation, for, during a pause, she blurted out without any preamble--

"You ought to get married, Jack. This is not the sort of place for a decent man to live in."

"No, aunt; I agree with you. It is not; and I want to get married. I can't imagine a more blissful state; but father has other views."

"Does he know the life you're living?"

This was rather disconcerting, and Jack was flustered.

"The life I'm leading? Oh, yes. I've told him how miserable it is in this ghastly place; but, you see, I can't afford anything better. Not only does he scout the idea of my marrying, but he refuses to sanction even an engagement."

"I should think so, indeed!"

"Yet you say I ought to get married, aunt."

There was an awkward pause.

"Who's the girl, Jack?" snapped the old lady, biting off her words one by one, with her eyes fastened upon the rose. He positively gasped. He could not answer. He ran his hand over his hair uneasily, and stammered before he could reply.

"The--the--lady I am in love with is--is the most charming girl imaginable. Father likes her, and mother simply adores her."

"So I've heard. Is she respectable?"

"Aunt!"

"Does she dress in clouds of white muslin, and go about unattended in the park in the morning, holding hands with men?"

"Ah, you've seen her!" cried Jack, with a wonderful burst of memory, and beaming genially. "Of course, you passed us."

"If she is the person I saw with you in Kensington Gardens, I don't think much of her. Your father is quite right. Matrimony is a precarious business, and a man's wife should bring him credit and not be a gay flyabout who has never known a mother's care, and runs wild meeting men in the park."

"But she was meeting me, aunt. We love each other."

"Yet you promised not to see her for the present."

"I am not aware that I promised anything. Father made some absurd stipulations, forgetting that I am no longer a boy."

"Jack, that's not the sort of woman for you. Have you forgotten that you have no money?"

"Am I likely to forget it here?" he groaned gloomily.

"Have you forgotten that you are my heir, Jack?"

"Well--well, I never thought about it, aunt. What has that to do with it?"

"It has this to do with it, my boy, that if you showed any promise of succeeding in your profession and applying yourself to the serious business of life, I should be quite prepared to supplement your father's allowance by another equally large----"

"Oh! aunt, that's wonderfully kind of you! I never thought of such a thing."

"No, nor I, till it came to my ears that you were philandering with women instead of attending to your work."

"Philandering, aunt? I am in dead earnest. There is only one woman for me----"

"Yes, and that is Beatrice Carew," snapped the old lady. "The girl has been in love with you for years. She is well connected, and a splendid match in every way."

"Beatrice, my wife!" exclaimed Jack, with a smile of incredulity. "I never thought of such a thing."

"Yes, you did, until this fluffy schoolgirl person with her foreign ways came along from Italy, or wherever she came from, and fooled you by a display of frivolity and animation to which you were not accustomed. Beatrice Carew is in every way desirable.

"I care nothing for Beatrice, aunt. Besides, she's Mabel's dearest friend. I never cared a rap for Beatrice."

"Nonsense! You hunted with her, played tennis with her, walked with her, fished with her----"

"But you were always there, aunt. You know that very well----"

"Yes, and if this Mabel person hadn't come along you would have married Beatrice. I should have seen to that."

Jack shrugged his shoulders and smiled with a superior air that irritated the elder lady.

"Jack, who saw to your bringing up?"

"Why you did, aunt--after mother died."

"And before that, too. Your mother, poor thing, was always helpless; and I'm afraid you're the same, unless you're looked after."

Again Jack shrugged his shoulders. Aunt Caroline glared once more at the rose. "I brought you up with decent ideas, and I intended that you should marry as early as possible a decent woman."

"There's only one woman for me, aunt. I am resolved."

"Oh, yes, love in a cottage on nothing a year. Poverty, squabbles, and a good man spoiled by a silly wife. I am quite in accord with your father. You must cast this Mabel person out of your mind."

"This Mabel person, as you call her, is all the world to me."

"Nonsense, my dear boy. There are more women than one in the world, and I'm sorry to see that you've already found it out."

Jack, with an apparently absent-minded movement, pushed the wine-glass with the rose behind the teapot out of sight.

"You'll be easily consoled, Jack; and, what is more to the point, you'll be able to marry Beatrice Carew comfortably. She has a reasonable income, though a small one; and as for you--well, do you know how much I'm worth?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, aunt. I never thought about it."

"How do you think I manage to keep up a house in town and the cottage at Ripley, and horses, and servants?"

"I never really gave it any consideration. You and father have never known the want of money--that's all I know. I supposed that father----"

"Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that your father's private income is less than mine?"

Jack opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

"Would you be surprised to know that it was I who paid for your education and your debts at Oxford--everything?"

"Well, aunt, you know, you've been such a mother to me--that--that----"

"That you have set no value upon services rendered. So like a man! Jack, my income is three thousand a year--and I don't spend two. I am your father's elder sister, and most of the money was left to me for fear he should squander it in the fantastic philanthropic schemes which absorbed all his interest as a young man. I've looked upon the money largely as left in trust. I have no other nephews and nieces, and your father has enough now for all his needs. I can spare at least a thousand a year for you, Jack----"

"Aunt!"

"When you are married."

"You overwhelm me."

"Don't be overwhelmed. Money never changes hands without conditions. It is Beatrice Carew or nobody. If you marry this foreign-bred, frivolous person with the loose manners, not a penny will you get, now--or hereafter!"

"Then, aunt, I can only thank you for your good wishes and decline."

"Tut-tut, boy. Don't make an absurd parade of sentiment. You haven't an ounce of it in your nature."

"I'm sure I can't see how you arrive at that estimate of me."

"Can't you?" snapped the old lady, bristling. "That's how I arrive at it," dragging out the rose, "Will you kindly explain to me how a man who professes to be irrevocably lost in love with Miss Mabel Nobody can fill in the hours with this sort of thing--and this?" Aunt Caroline made a dive with her umbrella and raised the trampled veil which had been torn from Mabel's hat in the struggle with her husband.

"Where on earth did that come from?" queried Jack, screwing up his eyes, and peering at it with wonderful innocence. "What is it?"

"A woman's veil. You can't deceive me. Ah, I know the sort, my boy. I've not lived in the world for over fifty years with my eyes shut, although I _am_ your maiden aunt. And, what is more, the sort of woman who likes to eat that stuff," indicating the plate of horrible Fleet Street confectionery, "must be of the lowest type."

Jack was completely nonplussed. He bit his lip, and choked, and tried to protest, but the old lady hushed him down. Yet, despite her assumed anger, there was just a twinkle of amusement in her stern eyes. Aunt Caroline could be surprisingly human at times. In fact, the humanity came uppermost rather suddenly.

"Who is she, Jack?" she asked almost confidentially, and with an eager, feminine curiosity which suggested that Aunt Caroline had a certain sporting instinct. "Is that the one?" indicating with her umbrella the portrait of a buxom minor actress peeping out from behind the corner of the picture of the cathedral. It was only a card from a cigarette packet; but Aunt Caroline didn't know that.

"Aunt, your suggestions wound me. They are so abominably low," cried Jack, with hauteur.

"Where's your friend who adores roses, then, eh? He hasn't come yet. And does this belong to the lady who scrubs the stairs?"

She spread out the veil and examined it before the light. "Yes, it looks like it, doesn't it? Shall we ask the stair-lady? Or shall I go into that room there, and tell your actress to come out? No, my boy, it's no good blustering, fuming, and grinding your teeth like that. I'm not preaching any sermons"--again she smiled that queer smile--"or saying that I'm shocked beyond words, because I'm not. I suspected it. I was afraid of it. I know you better than you know yourself, Jack."

"Wonderful penetration!" sneered Jack, now thoroughly roused, and bubbling over with injured innocence.

"I never made unfounded assertions; and I'm quite prepared to admit that, after all, it may be only a harmless tea-party of two that an old woman has disturbed. Your sleeping apartment has, in the emergency, been turned into a hiding-place, regardless of appearances. We will assume it is nothing worse than that."

"Aunt, you are jumping at conclusions."

"I'm not," contradicted the old lady, snapping out her words; "I'll prove them, if you like."

Without any warning, she stepped over to the bedroom door, and with the heavy, cat's-eye knob of her parasol banged once, loudly, upon the thin oak panel, which gave out a sound like a pistol shot. A startled cry escaped Mabel involuntarily.

Aunt Caroline laughed--not a pleasant laugh,--a rasping, acid chuckle that set Jack's teeth on edge.

"Now, then, Jack, we'll go and look over the church. I'm sorry to be a nuisance. But I cannot risk coming here again; and I must see the church. If I'm making demands upon your time, I consider I am entitled to it. You owe me something, my boy. I gave you a good training, which seems to have been of little value. If you'll go over the church with me, it may bring you to a more sober frame of mind, and allow the lady to escape and go home quietly."

Jack sighed despairingly. He was cornered. He was accustomed to obey Aunt Caroline from childhood; and to irritate her further by a refusal would only prejudice his case at home. That her silence was to be bought by discreet behavior he did not doubt. Aunt Caroline had a way of rising to amazing heights of discretion in times of crisis, and could be blind and deaf at will. She stalked with dignity to the door, and waited for him to open it, then out on to the landing, surveying everything as she went, and shuddering at the dirt on the walls. Jack lingered, and she knew why. She smiled sardonically and waited at the top of the stairs. He stepped to his bedroom door and whispered, "Wait for me, darling, I shan't be long;" then followed like a school-boy taken to church for punishment.

Mabel had heard everything through the slender wooden partition which divided the two rooms. All that had passed only seemed to confirm the wisdom of her decision to release her husband. She had already injured him and lowered him in the eyes of his foster-mother by coming to his chambers unattended; but she burned with indignation at the old woman's horrible insinuations. She longed to rush out into the fresh air. She had regarded herself as vile enough since her discovery of her father's infamy, but there were others ready to consider her viler.

She looked round for her veil, and her eye caught sight of the rose in the wine-glass. She seized it and pressed it to her lip, sobbing quietly.

The worst part of her task was over. She had prepared Jack, but she could not face a continuation of the interview so rudely interrupted. She could bear reproaches; but Jack's arm about her, and his wild caresses would utterly break her up.

She sat down at the writing-table and pencilled off a note, saying good-bye, with a promise of a letter; then, taking the rose, fled down the damp, newly-scrubbed stairs, out into the roadway.