THE following day was Sunday. Lucille, who had received and read the Declarator, was present at both morning and evening services, as usual, and took her full part in the Sunday school in the afternoon. Welsh's column had annoyed her, undoubtedly, but in another way than it had annoyed David. To David it had seemed the cruel and unfounded spitefulness of a wicked-minded old man; to Lucille it was as if Welsh had guessed close to the truth, but had carried his imagination too far. It had made her furiously angry, as such a thing would, but she felt that it would do her little harm. Welsh was known to be so vile that she had but to hold her head high, and the town and her friends would think none the less of her for the attack. Those who did believe it, if there were any, would by their belief be offering her a sort of incense she coveted.

Several spoke to David about the column, and all with genuine indignation. The story of Welsh's attack had spread, of course, but none of us who knew David Dean thought one iota of truth was in it; the thing was preposterous. It came down to this: David Dean was not the kind of man of which such things were possible. We did not believe it then, and we never believed it. The town did not believe it; even his few enemies knew him better than to believe such a thing; Welsh himself did not believe it. But Lucille Hardcome did, conceit-blinded creature that she was! Some day during the week, Wednesday it may have been, she drove her low-hung carriage to the manse. The driver's seat was a flat affair on X-shaped iron rods, so arranged that it could be turned back out of the way when Lucille wished to drive and dispense with her coachman, and she was driving now. David came to the door, and went in to get his hat. He wished to visit the same broken-legged boy, and the carriage was a grateful assistance. He spread the thin lap robe over his legs, and Lucille touched the horses with the whip.

“Jimmy's first?” she asked, and David assented.

“You have oranges again, I see,” he said. “How he enjoys them!”

“Doesn't he?” Lucille replied, and then: “I'm glad you do not mean to let that Declarator article make any difference. I was afraid it might. You are so sensitive, David.”

It was the first time she had called him David. Mary had called him that, and Rose did; he was David to many of us; but the name did not sound right coming from Lucille's mouth. She was so lordly, so queenly, usually so rather grandly aloof, calling even dear Thusia “Mrs. Dean,” and Rose “Miss Hinch.”

“Sensitive! I have never thought that of myself,” he answered.

“Oh, but you are!” she said. “I know you so well, you see. I almost feared that article would frighten you away; make you afraid of me. As if you and I need be afraid of each other!”

“I'm sure we need not be,” David answered, and she glanced at his face. She did not quite like the tone.

“I thought you might not come with me today,” she said. “If you had suggested that, I meant to rebel, naturally. Now, if ever, that would be a mistake. That would be the very thing to make people talk. Your friendship means too much to me to let it be interrupted by what people say.”

“It need not be interrupted,” said David.

“It means so much more to me than you imagine,” Lucille said. “Often I think you don't realize how empty my life was when I began to know you. You are so modest, so self-effacing, you do not know your worth. If you knew the full story of my childhood and girlhood, so empty and loveless, and even my short year of married life, so lacking in love, you would know what your friendship has meant. Just to know a man like you meant so much. It gave life a new meaning.”

Unfortunately you cannot see Lucille Hardcome as David saw her when he turned his face toward her, perplexed by her words, not able to believe what her tone implied, until he saw her face. She had grown heavier in the years she had been in Riverbank, and flabbier—or flabby—for she was not that when she came to the town. She wore one of the flamboyant hats she affected, and she was beautifully overdressed. The red of her cheeks was too deep to be natural. She was artificial and the artificiality extended to her mind and her heart, and could not but be apparent to one so sincere as David Dean. Her very words were artificial, as she spoke. The same words coming from another woman would have been the sincere cry of a heart thankful for the friendship David had given; coming from Lucille they sounded false; they sounded, as they were, the love-making of a shallow woman.

David was frightened; he was as frightened as a boy who suddenly finds himself enfolded in the arms of a lovesick cook, half smothered, and only anxious to kick himself out of the sudden embrace. He saw, as if a dozen curtains of gauze had suddenly been withdrawn, the meaning of many of Lucille's words and actions he had formerly seen through the veils of misunderstanding. There was something comical in his dismay. He wanted to jump from the low-hung carriage and run. He said:

“Yes. I'm quite sure—”

“So it means so much to me that we are not to let anything make a difference,” Lucille continued. “I think we need each other. In your work a woman's sympathy—”

“I think I'll have to get out,” David said. “I'll just run in here and—”

He waved a hand toward a shop at the side of the street. It happened to be a tobacconist's, but he did not notice that. He threw the lap robe from his knees, and put a foot ont of the carriage. Lucille was surprised. She stopped her horses. She thought David might mean to buy a package of tobacco for some old man he had in mind. He stepped to the walk. Once there he felt safer; his wits returned.

“I think I'll walk, if you don't mind,” he said. “I need the exercise. No, really, I'll walk. Thank you.”

Lucille looked after him.

“Well!” she exclaimed, and then: “I'm through with you, Mr. David Dean!”

She thought she was haughtily indifferent, but at heart she was furiously angry. She turned her horses, and drove home. To prove how indifferent she was she told her coachman, in calm tones, to grease the harness and, entering the house, she told her maid to wash the parlor windows. She went to her room quite calmly and thought: “What impudence! He imagined I was making love to him!” and then, as evidence that she was calm and untroubled, she seated herself at her desk, and wrote a calm and businesslike note to David Dean. It said that, as she was in some need of money, she would have to ask that his note be paid as soon as it fell due. She still believed she was not angry, but how does that line go? Is it “Earth hath no fury like a woman scorned”?