Bertha had spent the greater part of the day with her children, as she had spent part of many days lately. She had gone up to the nursery after breakfast to see Jack and Janey at their lessons, and had remained with them and given herself up to their entertainment. She was not well; the weather was bad; she might give herself a holiday, and she would spend it in her own way, in the one refuge which never failed her.

"It is always quiet here," she said to herself. "If I could give up all the rest—all of it—and spend all my days here, and think of nothing else, I might be better. There are women who live so. I think they must be better in every way than I am—and happier. I am sure I should have been happier if I had begun so long ago."

And as she sat, with Janey at her side, in the large chair which held them both, her arm thrown round the child's waist, there came to her a vague thought of what the unknown future might form itself into when she "began again." It would be beginning again when the sea was between the new life and the old; everything would be left behind—but the children. She would live as she had lived in Virginia, always with the children—always with the children. "It is the only safe thing," she thought, clasping Janey closer. "Nothing else is safe for a woman who is unhappy. If one is happy one may be gay, and look on at the world with the rest; but there are some who must not look on—who dare not."

"Mamma," said Janey, "you are holding me a little too close, and your face looks—it looks—as if you were thinking."

Bertha laughed to reassure her. They were used to this gay, soft laugh of hers, as the rest of the world was. If she was silent, if the room was not bright with the merriment she had always filled it with, they felt themselves a trifle injured, and demanded their natural rights with juvenile imperiousness. "Mamma always laughs," Jack had once announced to a roomful of company. "She plays new games with us and laughs, and we laugh too. Maria and Susan are not funny. Mamma is funny, and like a little girl grown up. We always have fun when she comes into the nursery." "It is something the same way in the parlor," Planefield had said, showing his teeth amiably, and Bertha, who was standing near Colonel Tredennis, had laughed in a manner to support her reputation, but had said nothing. So she laughed now, not very vivaciously, perhaps. "That was very improper, Janey," she said, "to look as if I was thinking. It is bad enough to be thinking. It must not occur again."

"But if you were thinking of a story to tell us," suggested Jack, graciously, "it wouldn't matter, you see. You might go on thinking."

"But the story was not a new one," she answered. "It was sad. I did not like it myself."

"We should like it," said Janey.

"If it's a story," remarked Jack, twisting the string round his top, "it's all right. There was a story Uncle Philip told us."

"Suppose you tell it to me," said Bertha.

"It was about a knight," said Janey, "who went to a great battle. It was very sorrowful. He was strong, and happy, and bold, and the king gave him a sword and armor that glittered and was beautiful. And his hair waved in the breeze. And he was young and brave. And his horse arched its neck. And the knight longed to go and fight in the battle, and was glad and not afraid; and the people looked on and praised him, because they thought he would fight so well. But just as the battle began, before he had even drawn his sword, a stray shot came, and he fell. And while the battle went on he lay there dying, with his hand on his breast. And at night, when the battle was over, and the stars came out, he lay and looked up at them, and at the dark-blue sky, and wondered why he had been given his sword and armor, and why he had been allowed to feel so strong, and glad, and eager,—only for that. But he did not know. There was no one to tell him. And he died. And the stars shone down on his bright armor and his dead face."

"I didn't like it myself," commented Jack. "It wasn't much of a story. I told him so."

"He was sorry he told it," said Janey, "because I cried. I don't think he meant to tell such a sad story."

"He wasn't funny, that day," observed Jack. "Sometimes he isn't funny at all, and he sits and thinks about things; and then, if we make him tell us a story, he doesn't tell a good one. He used to be nicer than he is now."

"I love him," said Janey, faithfully; "I think he is nice all the time."

"It wasn't much of a story, that is true," said Bertha. "There was not enough of it."

"He died too soon," said Jack.

"Yes," said Bertha; "he died too soon, that was it,—too soon." And the laugh she ended with had a sound which made her shudder.

She got up from her rocking-chair quickly.

"We won't tell stories," she said. "We will play. We will play ball and blind-man's bluff—and run about and get warm. That will be better."

And she took out her handkerchief and tied it over her eyes with unsteady hands, laughing again,—laughing while the children laughed, too.

They played until the room rang with their merriment. They had not been so gay together for many a day, and when the game was at an end they tried another and another, until they were tired and ready for their nursery dinner. Bertha did not leave them even then. She did not expect Richard home until their own dinner-hour in the evening, so she sat at the children's table and helped them herself, in the nurse's place; and they were in high spirits, and loquacious and confidential.

When the meal was over they sat by the nursery fire, and Meg fell asleep in her mother's arms; and after she had laid her on her bed Bertha came back to Jack and Janey, and read and talked to them until dusk began to close in about them. It was as they sat so together that a sealed package was brought to her by a servant, who said it had been left at the door by a messenger. It contained two letters,—one addressed to Senator Blundel, and one to herself,—and both were in Richard's hand.

"I suppose something has detained him, and I am not to wait dinner," she thought, as she opened the envelope bearing her own name.

The same thing had occurred once or twice before, so it made but little impression upon her. There were the usual perfectly natural excuses. He had been very hard at work and would be obliged to remain out until some time past their dinner-hour. He had an engagement at one of the hotels, and could dine there; he was not quite sure that he should be home until late. Then he added, just before closing:

"Blundel said something about calling this evening. He had been having a hard day of it and said he wanted a change. I had a very satisfactory talk with him, and I think he begins to see the rights of our case. Entertain him as charmingly as possible, and if he is not too tired, and is in a good humor, hand him the enclosed letter. It contains testimony which ought to be a strong argument, and I think it will be."

Bertha looked at the letter. It was not at all imposing, and seemed to contain nothing more than a slip of paper. She put it down on the mantel and sighed faintly.

"If he knew what a service he would do me by seeing the rights of the case," she said to herself, "I think he would listen to their arguments. I think he likes me well enough to do it. I believe he would enjoy being kind to me. If this should be the end of it all, it would be worth the trouble of being amusing and amiable one evening."

But she did not look forward with any great pleasure to the prospect of what was before her. Perhaps her day in the nursery had been a little too much for her; she was tired, and would have been glad to be left alone. But this was not to be. She must attire herself, in all her bravery, and sing, and laugh, and be gay a little longer. How often had she done the same thing before? How often would she do it again?

"There are some people who are born to play comedy," she said afterward, as she stood before her mirror, dressing. "They can do nothing else. I am one of them. Very little is expected of me, only that I shall always laugh and make jokes. If I were to try tragedy, that would be a better jest than all the rest. If I were to be serious, what a joke that would be!"

She thought, as she had done a thousand times, of a portrait of herself which had been painted three years before. It had been her Christmas gift to Richard, and had been considered a great success. It was a wonderfully spirited likeness, and the artist had been fortunate in catching her brightest look.

"It is the expression that is so marvellous," Richard had often said. "When I look at it I always expect to hear you laugh."

"Are they never tired of it?" she said; "never tired of hearing me laugh? If I were to stop some day and say, 'See, I am tired of it myself. I have tears as well as the rest of you. Let me'"—She checked herself; her hands had begun to tremble—her voice; she knew too well what was coming upon her. She looked at herself in the glass.

"I must dress myself carefully," she said, "if I am to look vivacious. One's attire is called upon to do a great deal for one when one has a face like that."

Outwardly her attire had done a great deal for her when, after she had dined alone, she sat awaiting her guest. The fire burned brightly; the old songs lay upon the piano; a low stand, with a pretty coffee service upon it, was drawn near her; a gay little work-basket, containing some trifle of graceful work, was on her knee. Outside, the night was decidedly unpleasant. "So unpleasant," she said to herself, "that it will surprise me if he comes." But though by eight o'clock the rain was coming down steadily, at half-past eight she heard the familiar heavy tread upon the door-step, and her visitor presented himself.

What sort of humor he was in when he made his entry Bertha felt that it was not easy to decide; but it struck her that it was not a usual humor, and that the fatigues of the day had left their mark upon him. He looked by no means fresh, and by the time he had seated himself felt that something had disturbed him, and that it was true that he needed distraction.

It had always been very simple distraction she offered him; he had never demanded subtleties from her or any very great intellectual effort; his ideas upon the subject of the feminine mind were, perhaps, not so advanced as they might have been, and belonged rather to the days and surroundings of his excellent, hard-worked mother and practical, unimaginative sisters than to a more brilliant world. Given a comfortable seat in the pretty room, the society of this pretty and smiling little person, who poured out his coffee for him, enjoyed his jokes, and prattled gayly of things pleasant and amusing, he was perfectly satisfied. What he felt the need of was rest and light recreation, cheerfulness, and appreciation, a sense of relief from the turmoil and complications of the struggling, manoeuvring, overreaching, ambitious world he lived in.

Knowing this, Bertha had given him what he enjoyed, and she offered him no other entertainment this evening. She gave him his cup of coffee, and talked to him as he drank it, telling him an amusing story or so of the children or of people he knew.

"I have been in the nursery all day," she said. "I have been playing blind-man's buff and telling stories. You have never been in the nursery, have you? You are not like Colonel Tredennis, who thinks the society there is better than that we have in the parlor."

"Perhaps he's not so far wrong," said her guest, bluntly, "though I have never been in the nursery myself. I have a nursery of my own up at the Capitol, and I don't always find it easy to manage."

"The children fight, I have heard," said Bertha, "and sometimes call each other names; and it is even reported that they snatch at each other's toys and break those they cannot appropriate. I am afraid the discipline is not good!"

"It isn't," he answered, "or there isn't enough of it."

He set his coffee-cup down and watched her as she leaned back in her chair and occupied herself with the contents of her work-basket.

"Do you go into the nursery often," he asked, "or is it out of the fashion?"

"It is out of the fashion," she answered, "but"—She stopped and let her work rest on her knee as she held it. "Will you tell me why you ask me that?" she said, and her face changed as she spoke.

"I asked you because I didn't know," he answered. "It seemed to me you couldn't have much time for things of that sort. You generally seem to be pretty busy with one thing and another. I don't know much about fashionable life and fashionable women. The women I knew when I was a boy—my own mother and her sisters—spent the most of their time with their children; and it wasn't such a bad way either. They were pretty good women."

"Perhaps it was the best way," said Bertha, "and I dare say they were better for it. I dare say we compare very unfavorably with them."

"You don't compare at all," he returned. "I should not compare you. I don't know how it would work with you. They got old pretty soon, and lost their good looks; but they were safe, kind-hearted creatures, who tried to do their duty and make the best of things. I don't say they were altogether right in their views of life; they were narrow, I suppose, and ran into extremes, but they had ways a man likes to think of, and did very little mischief."

"I could scarcely estimate the amount of mischief I do," said Bertha, applying herself to her work cheerfully; "but I do not think my children are neglected. Colonel Tredennis would probably give a certificate to that effect. They are clothed quite warmly, and are occasionally allowed a meal, and I make a practice of recognizing them when I meet them on the street."

She was wondering if it would not be better to reserve the letter until some more auspicious occasion. It struck her that in the course of his day's fatigues he had encountered some problem of which he found it difficult to rid himself. There were signs of it in his manner. He wore a perturbed, preoccupied expression, and looked graver than she had ever seen him. He sat with his hands in his pockets, his hair on end, his bluff countenance a rather deeper color than usual, and his eyes resting upon her.

"This isn't an easy world," he said, "and I suppose it is no easier for women than for men. I shouldn't like to be a woman myself, and have to follow my leader, and live in one groove from beginning to end. It is natural that some should feel the temptation to try to get out of it, and use their power as men use theirs; but it does not pay—it can't. Women were meant to be good—to be good and honest and true, and—and innocent."

It was an amazingly ingenuous creed, and he presented it with a rough simplicity and awkwardness which might have been laughable but for their heavy sincerity. Bertha felt this seriousness instantaneously, and, looking up, saw in his sharp little eyes a suggestion of feeling which startled her.

"Wondering what I'm thinking of?" he said. "Well, I am thinking of you. I've thought of you pretty often lately, and to-night I've a reason for having you in my mind."

"What is the reason?" she asked, more startled than before.

He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets; there was no mistaking the evidences of strong emotion in his face.

"I am a friend of yours," he said. "You know that; you've known it some time. My opinion of you is that you are a good little woman,—the right sort of a little woman,—and I have a great deal of confidence in you."

"I hope so," said Bertha.

She felt that as he gained warmth and color she lost them; she thought of the letter which lay on the mantel-piece within a few feet of him, and wished that it was not so near. There had been evil spoken of her, and he had heard it. She realized that, and knew that she was upon her defence, even while she had no knowledge of what she was to defend herself against.

"I hope so," she said again, tremulously. "I hope so, indeed;" and her eyes met his with a helplessness more touching than any appeal she could have made.

It so moved him that he could remain quiet no longer, but sprang to his feet and drew his hand from his pocket and rubbed it excitedly over his upright hair.

"Damn it!" he broke forth, "let them say what they will,—let what will happen, I'll believe in you! Don't look at me like that; you are a good little woman, but you are in the wrong place. There are lies and intrigues going on about you, and you are too—too bright and pretty to be judged fairly by outsiders. You don't know what you are mixed up in; how should you! Who is to tell you? These fellows who dangle about and make fine speeches are too smooth-tongued, even when they know enough. I'll tell you. I never paid you compliments or made love to you, did I? I'm no good at that; but I'll tell you the truth, and give you a bit of good advice. People are beginning to talk, you see, and tell lies. They have brought their lies to me; I don't believe them, but others will. There are men and women who come to your house who will do you no good, and are more than likely to do you harm. They are a lot of intriguers and lobbyists. You don't want that set here. You want honest friends, and an innocent, respectable home for your children, and a name they won't be ashamed of. Send the whole set packing, and cut yourself loose from them."

Bertha stood up also. She had forgotten the little work-basket, and still held it in her hands, suspended before her.

"Will you tell me," she said, "what the lies were,—the lies you heard?"

Perhaps she thought, with a hopeless pang, they were not lies at all; perhaps he had only heard what was the truth, that she had been told to try to please him, that his good-will might be gained to serve an end. Looked at from Richard's stand-point that had been a very innocent thing; looked at from his stand-point it might seem just what it had seemed to herself, even in the reckless, desperate moment when she had given way.

He paused a moment, barely a moment, and then answered her.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell you if you want to know. There has been a big scheme on hand for some time,—there are men who must be influenced; I am one of them, and people say that the greater part of the work is carried on in your parlors here, and that you were set on me because you were a clever little manoeuvrer, and knew your business better than I should be likely to suspect. That is what they say, and that is what I must believe, because"—

He stopped short. He had drawn nearer the mantel-piece, and as he spoke some object lying upon it caught his eye. It was the letter directed to himself, lying with the address upward, and he took it in his hand.

"What is this?" he demanded. "Who left it here?"

Bertha stood perfectly motionless. Richard's words came back to her: "Give it to him if he is in a good humor. It contains arguments which I think will convince him." Then she looked at Blundel's face. If there could be any moment more unfit than another for the presentation of arguments it was this particular one. And never before had she liked him so well or valued his good opinion so highly as she did now, when he turned his common, angry, honest face upon her.

"What is it?" he said again. "Tell me."

She thought of Richard once more, and then of the children sleeping upstairs, and of the quiet, innocent day she had spent with them. They did not know that she was an intriguing woman, whom people talked of; she had never realized it herself to the full until this moment. They had delicately forborne giving any name to the thing she had done; but this man, who judged matters in a straightforward fashion, would find a name for it. But there was only one answer for her to make.

"It is a letter I was to give you," she said.

"And it is from your husband?"

"I have not read it," she replied.

He stopped short a moment and looked at her—with a sudden suggestion of doubt and bewilderment that was as bad as a blow.

"Look here!" he said. "You were going to give it to me,—you intended to do it."

"Yes."

He gave her another look,—amazement, anger, disbelief, struggling with each other in it,—and then thrust his obstinate fists into his pockets again and planted himself before her like a rock.

"By the Lord!" he said. "I won't believe it!"

The hard common-sense which had been his stronghold and the stand-by of his constituents for many a year came to his rescue. He might not know much of women; but he had seen intrigue, and trickery, and detected guilt, and it struck him if these things were here, they were before him in a new form.

"Now," he said, "tell me who gave it to you."

"You will know that," she answered, "when you read it."

"Tell me," he demanded, "if you know what is in it."

"I know something," she replied, "of what is in it."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I'd give a great deal to know how much."

Only Richard could have told him how much or how little, and he was not there.

"Come," he said, as she made no reply, "they might easily deceive you. Tell me what you know, and I will believe you,—and there are very few women in your place I would say as much to."

"I do not think," she answered, "that they have deceived me."

"Then," he returned, his face hardening, "you have deceived me!"

"Yes," she answered, turning white, "I suppose I have."

There was a moment of dead silence, in which his shrewd eyes did their work as well as they had done it at any time during his fifty years of life. Then he spoke to her again.

"They wanted me here because they wanted to make use of me," he said. "You knew that."

"They did not put it in that way," she answered. "I dare say you know that."

"You were to befool me as far as you could, and make the place agreeable to me,—you knew that?"

She turned paler.

"I—I have liked you very sincerely!" she broke forth, piteously. "I have liked you! Out of all the rest, that one thing was true! Don't—ah, don't think it was not."

His expression for a moment was a curiously undecided one; he was obliged to rally himself with a sharp rub at his hair.

"I'll tell you what I think of that when you have answered me another question," he said. "There is a person who has done a great deal of work in this matter, and has been very anxious about it, probably because he has invested in it more money than he can spare,—buying lands and doing one thing and another. That person is your husband, Mr. Richard Amory. Tell me if you knew that."

The blood rushed to her face and then left it again.

"Richard!" she exclaimed. "Richard!" and she caught at the mantel and held to it.

His eyes did not leave her for an instant. He nodded his head with a significance whose meaning was best known to himself.

"Sit down," he said. "I see you did not know that."

She did as he told her. It was as if such a flash of light had struck across her mental vision as half blinded her.

"Not Richard!" she cried out; and even as she said it a thousand proofs rushed back upon her and spoke the whole shameful truth for themselves.

Blundel came nearer to her, his homely, angry face, in spite of its anger, expressing honest good feeling as strongly as any much handsomer one might have done.

"I knew there had been deep work somewhere," he said. "I saw it from the first. As for you, you have been treated pretty badly. I supposed they persuaded you that you might as well amuse one man as another,—and I was the man. I dare say there is more behind than I can see. You had nothing to gain as far as you knew, that's plain enough to me."

"No," she exclaimed, "it was not I who was to gain. They did not think of—of me!"

"No," he went on, "they lost sight of you rather often when they had a use for you. It's apt to be the way. It's time some one should think of you, and I mean to do it. I am not going to say anything more against those who—made the mistake" (with a resentful shuffle of his shoulders as he put it thus mildly), "than I can help, but I am going to tell you the truth. I have heard ugly stories for some time, and I've had my suspicions of the truth of them; but I meant to wait for proof, and it was given me this afternoon. More was said to me than it was safe to say to an honest man, and I let the person who talked go as far as he would, and he was too desperate to be cautious. I knew a bold move was to be made, and I guessed it would be made to-night."

He took the envelope from his pocket where he had tucked it unopened. His face grew redder and hotter.

"If it were not for you," he said; "if I didn't have faith in your being the honest little woman I took you for; if I didn't believe you spoke the truth when you said you liked me as honestly as I liked you,—though the Lord knows there is no proof except that I do believe you in spite of everything,—I'd have the thing spread the length and breadth of the land by to-morrow morning, and there would be such an uproar as the country has not seen for a year or so."

"Wait!" said Bertha, half-starting from her seat. "I did not understand before. This is too much shame. I thought it was—only a letter. I did not know"—

He went to the fire.

"I believe that, too," he said, grimly; "but it is not a little thing I'm doing. I'm denying myself a great deal. I'd give five years of my life"—He straightened out his short, stout arm and closed hand with a robust gesture, and then checked himself. "You don't know what is in it. I don't know. I have not looked at it. There it goes." And he tossed it into the fire.

"The biggest fool of all," he said, "is the fool who takes every man for a knave. Do they think a country like this has been run for a century by liars and thieves? There have been liars and thieves enough, but not enough to bring it to a stand-still, and that seems to argue that there has been an honest man or so to keep a hand on their throats. When there are none left—well, it won't be as safe to belong to the nation as it is to-day, in spite of all that's bad in it."

The envelope had flamed up, and then died down into tindery blackness. He pointed to it.

"You can say it is there," he said, "and that I didn't open it, and they may thank you for it. Now I am going."

Bertha rose. She put her hand on the mantel again.

"If I do not thank you as I ought," she said, brokenly, "you must forgive me. I see all that you have spared me, but—I have had a heavy blow." He paused to look at her, rubbing his upright hair for the last time, his little eyes twinkling with a suspicious brightness, which had its softness too. He came back and took her hand, and held it in an awkward, kindly clasp.

"You are a good little woman," he said. "I'll say it to you again. You were not cut out to be made anything else of. You won't be anything else. You are young to be disappointed and unhappy. I know all that, and there doesn't seem much to say. Advice wouldn't amount to much, and I don't know that there is any to give."

They moved slowly toward the door together. When they stood upon the threshold he dropped her hand as awkwardly as he had taken it, and made a gesture toward the stairway, the suspicious brightness of his eyes more manifest than ever.

"Your children are up there asleep," he said, unsteadily. "Go to them."

And turning away, shrugged himself into his overcoat at the hat-stand, opened the door for himself, and went out of the house without another word.