HOW LIZARANN AND JOAN PLAYED TRUANT. OF A RIDE IN A MOTOR, AND ITS BAD EFFECTS. HOW LIZARANN CONVALESCED, AND JUDITH WALKED HOME FROM CHURCH WITH THE RECTOR. HOW MARIANNE HAD BOLTED WITH THE TWO CHILDREN

Lizarann was, of course, the patient Mr. Taylor spoke of. But it was all her own fault, said Public Opinion, that she had such a bad inflammatory cold. If she and Joan had been good, obedient children, and done as they were told when they came home from the tea-party at Royd, instead of giving Aunt Bessy the slip and running away to Daddy at Mrs. Forks's cottage, all would have been well. But be lenient to Lizarann! It was all through her anxiety that old Christopher should have his bicarbonate of soda. Her anxiety on his behalf was great, although she did not know him personally.

"Maten't Phoebe and Jones go round to old Mrs. Forks, where Daddy is, and bring it screwed up in piper like acrost the road to Mr. Curtis's?" So Lizarann had said—for she really believed that Joan's name was one and the same with that of the Wash, in Cazenove Street—and Aunt Bessy's negative had been emphatic.

"Certainly not, my dear! At this time of the evening! Why, it's past six o'clock.... Yes, you and Joan may run on in front, only don't get over the gate till I come. The gate of the next field, you know." But when Aunt Bessy and Phoebe reached that gate—where were Lizarann and Joan? The wicked imps had gone to Mrs. Forks's.

The worst of it was that when the Rector had personally recaptured the truants, and was taking them home, a motor-car, with a lady and gentleman in it, passed them, going at speed. That, as they escaped alive, was no harm. But, having passed, it stopped, and something disagreed with it all through the colloquy that followed.

"Isn't that Mr. Taylor? Can't we give you a lift?"

"You're going the wrong way. And we're too numerous."

"Nonsense! Any amount of room! And it won't take us three minutes to run you back to the Rectory. Jump in."

The Rector hesitated a moment. It was just on to dinner-time at the Hall, and it seemed a shame to make this lady and gentleman late. But Lizarann was coughing again. It may have been the petrol, but still——! Then, too, Aunt Bessy's anxiety would be over all the sooner. And there were those children almost frantic with delight at the idea of a ride in a motor!

So he agreed. And it was fun! Only there were two drawbacks—one, that it was over so soon; the other, that no sooner were they deposited at the Rectory gate, and the lady and gentleman in the motor off at great speed to be in time for dinner, than Lizarann had such a terrible attack of coughing that Miss Caldecott and her brother-in-law were quite alarmed.

The report the Rector gave to Lady Arkroyd was too sanguine. Bad inflammatory colds don't yield to treatment in a couple of hours, which was about how long it had been at work by the time he and Aunt Bessy drove away to the Hall, to come in after dinner, having been forced to cry off, with apology and explanation, owing to the escapade of the children.

Lizarann's didn't yield to treatment for many days, and during that period was a serious source of alarm to all her circle of friends at the Rectory, and a frequent subject of inquiry by interested outsiders. For the little maid had a happy faculty of remaining in the memory of chance acquaintances. Also, it was generally understood in the neighbourhood that she was a delicate protÉgÉe of the Rector's friend's sister, Adeline Fossett, and had been sent away from town to get the benefit of the air at Royd. So Lizarann got quite her fair share of public interest.

But her attack must have been a sharp one, or we may rely upon it she wouldn't have been kept in bed next day, and more days after next day. And Dr. Sidrophel—it wasn't his real name, mind you!—wouldn't have said, as he did till Lizarann really felt quite sick of hearing it, that it would be as well to continue the poultices, for the present, as a precaution. Her own view, to be sure, was that inflammation was the result of mustard poultices and stethoscopes primarily, and that it was bound to get worse if you had to put a glass tube in your mouth at the bidding of well-meaning friends. But she concealed these convictions in deference to public opinion, and did everything she was told to do, however gross the infatuation might be that instituted the obnoxious treatment. Her conviction that she had, intrinsically, nothing the matter with her was, however, not one to be shaken lightly. She went so far once as to say so to Dr. Pordage—that was his real name!—who replied, "Oh ah, that's it, is it? Nothing the matter! But you will have, if you don't look alive, as safe as a button! So there we are, little miss!"—but absently, as though she was a child and wouldn't understand him—and blotted the prescription he had been writing. But Lizarann heard every word, and resolved to look alive, so far as in her lay, whenever an opportunity came. Meanwhile, none being manifest, she reflected a good deal on buttons, wondering what was the nature of the security they tendered, and why she had never heard it before.

When Mr. Yorick—the name she preferred for the Rector, because, you see, Miss Fossett must know best—came to pay her a visit shortly after, she inquired on this point, giving the whole of the doctor's speech, and making herself cough. Now, Mr. Yorick always talked to Lizarann as if she was a sensible person; and if there was one attribute for which the child loved him more dearly than another, it was that. But her devotion to him was so complete—second only to her love for her Daddy—that analysis of it was absurd.

"Was he talking to you, or talking to himself, Lizarann?" said he, sitting by the bed with the patient's hand in his. It was small and feverish.

The reply called for reflection. Having thought well over it, Lizarann said decisively: "Bofe!"

"Was he writing all the while?"

"Yass!" Nods helped the emphasis. "All the while! Scritch-scratch!"

"That was it, Lizarann! Dr. Sidrophel can't write and hear what he says to himself at the same time. So nobody knows what he means." But the little woman's great eyes were full of doubtful inquiry, and more must be said. "I expect he only meant that if you went out in the air you would get your cough back. So you must just look alive and lie in bed." It was plausible, and would have to do for the present. The button question might stand over.

"Mustn't I go and see Daddy where Mrs. Forks is?"

"Yes, in a little while. Daddy will come and see you every day."

"And bring his crutches to come upstairs with?"

"Daddy left his crutches here yesterday. To be ready for him whenever he comes."

"And not tear a hole in the drugget?"

"Not if he goes gently and I put my hand on his back!"

"Which hand?"

"This one I've got hold of you with, Miss Coupland! Any more questions?" Lizarann pursed up her lips and shook her head. But she reconsidered her decision. "Yass! About Dr. Side—Dr. Side...."

"Dr. Sidrophel? What about him?"

"Why's his real nime Pordage?" She had the name very pat, showing close observation and reflection.

Mr. Yorick had to consider the point. "Well!" said he presently, "I admit it's rather a bad job. But there's no way out of it now. It is his real name, and that's all about it!" But Lizarann looked dissatisfied. "We may call him Dr. Sidrophel behind his back, Lizarann," added he.

"Supposing he was to hear us talking behind his back, and was to listen behind his back...!" Hypothetical knavery being admitted between these two, as a necessity in ingenious fictions, Mr. Yorick did not think a homily on truth-telling necessary at this point. In fact, he counselled bold duplicity, to Lizarann's great relief. "We should have to go far enough off, Lizarann," said he. And the stage direction indicated was so pleasant to her unfledged mind that she utilized it to develope the subject further—kept the curtain up, as it were!

"Then if we wentited far enough off, you could tell me why his nime was Dr. Spiderophel, too." She dashed intrepidly at the name, and nearly captured it.

"Of course I could, and he wouldn't hear one word."

"And what should you sye?" Lizarann gave a slight leap in bed, from pleasant anticipation. She was told to lie quiet, and she should hear.

And that is how it was that when Miss Caldecott came in, dressed cap-À-pie for public worship, a prayer-book in a gloved hand—for it was Sunday morning—to remind her brother-in-law that the bells were going to begin, and arouse him to his duties, she found him telling how Sidrophel was an astronomer who took a fly in his telescope for an elephant on the moon; and that this legend was only partly cleared up by its narrator. Telescopes and stethoscopes remained imperfectly differentiated in Lizarann's mind. And Mr. Yorick's temporary acceptance of her pronunciation led to a misapprehension about spiders and flies. Did this astronomer catch that fly, or did the fly get away? Lizarann treasured hopes on its behalf, for the next chapter in the story.

But she felt it her duty to look alive, and lie quite quiet in bed, although—law bless you!—she had nothing the matter with her. So she lay and watched a greedy bee, who seemed bent on leaving no honey in that jessamine, at any rate, that came across the open lattice, and had its say in the mixed scents of hay and roses that came in out of the sunshine for Lizarann to get her share of them. She lay and listened to the bells, and wondered why the sound rose and fell, and decided at first that it was done for the purpose, and was the right way. But then, how did Nonconformity afar manage to do it so exactly like? For the Chapel tinkle rose and fell, too. Then came the footsteps on the garden-gravel; one big one, the Rector's, and many small ones. And Lizarann was so sorry she wasn't to go to Church, where it was her Sunday-wont, in these days, to drive a coach-and-six through the first Commandment, and worship Athelstan Taylor on his pulpit-altar in a heart-felt way, while admitting official obligations elsewhere.

But she couldn't go this time, and, what was more, she had to go on looking alive and lying quiet while Phoebe and Joan shouted good-byes up at the window, as though they were off to New Zealand; because, you see, Lizarann had solemnly promised, if they did so, not to shout back and make herself cough.

"She hardly coughed at all when I was with her," said the Rector, on his way to his weekly piÈce de rÉsistance—his Sunday sermon. "I can't help thinking Dr. Sidrophel may be making his fly out an elephant this time."

"Perhaps, dear! But the fly may become an elephant. He's really very clever, although you do make such game of him. You see, he was quite right about poor Gus."

"Ah, dear, dear!—yes. But then he says, if Gus got into a better climate, he might make old bones yet."

"So Gus will, by God's mercy, dear! But I mean, Dr. Pordage said—and I do not see that I am bound to call him out of his name—that in the end Gus would have to give in, and go. You see, he was right! Joan!"

"Yes, aunty darling!"

"Don't turn your toes in and out, and whistle. It's not at all lady-like, and there's Mrs. Theophilus Silverton just behind in the pony-carriage." Joan toned her behaviour down to meet the prejudices of local society. "You do see, don't you, that Dr. Pordage was right?" For this good lady wouldn't glisser, and always appuyait until her accuracy had been entered on the minutes. Her brother-in-law said, "Quite right, aunty!" And she said, "Very well, then!" and seemed to find the fact that she was right almost a set-off against the painful fact she was right about.

For Dr. Sidrophel's shrewd forecast about the Rev. Augustus Fossett meant exile for that invalid; and this exile had already taken form in the proposal that Gus should accept a chaplaincy of an English church in Tunis, which had been offered to him. Athelstan Taylor was keen on his acceptance of the post; as he would have been on the amputation of his own right hand, if he had seen therein any benefit for his friend. But his face went very sad over it as he walked on in silence.

His mind was back in old Eton and Oxford days, when they were all young together—Gus and his sister Adeline, and he, and the mother of those two youngsters in front, who were being so decorous, pending the approach of the pony-chariot behind. And this semi-sister of his own, beside him now, who was always a sort of thorn in the Rector's innermost conscience. For hadn't she—or had she—foregone wedlock and babes of her own for the sake of her sister's and his? The sort of thing no one could ever really know! And what would happen if this confounded Deceased Wife's Sister bill were to become law? That was the cul-de-sac these explorations often led him to, more and more as the chances increased of a majority for the Bill in the House of Peers. But it was a cul-de-sac. Why think about it? Was not each day's evil sufficient for it, and something over?

The pony-carriage gained and gained—overhauled the pedestrians—underwent a period of rapture that it should absolutely see them alive in the flesh—and forged ahead unfeelingly. But it had not expelled from the Rector's mind a something that it had met with in that cul-de-sac—what was it?—oh yes, he knew!

"That's a very sad business, I'm afraid, of poor Challis's."

But Miss Caldecott cannot honour this remark immediately. Deportment calls for attention. "You're not to begin again, the minute they're out of sight, Joan.... What business, dear?"

"I thought you knew about it?"

"No, I know nothing. Only what Lady Arkroyd said."

"Exactly! Well—it's a very painful affair."

"No doubt, dear! Phoebe, don't hunch your shoulders."

"Come, Bess, be a little sorry for the poor chap! I don't believe it's his fault."

"Oh, I dare say not! I know nothing about it. And I don't want to know anything about people of that sort."

"What sort?"

"You know what I mean, Athel. Literary, freethinking sort of people. Them and their wives!"

"I know quite well what you mean, Bess." As Athelstan does know, he says so honestly, instead of allowing his sister-in-law to attempt to explain her meaning, which he is well aware she cannot. "But tell me again what Lady Arkroyd said about Challis and his wife."

"Just what I told you."

"Which was...?"

"That they had quarrelled, and she had gone away to her mother. The day after he went back."

"Was that all?"

"Yes—I think so! Yes, there was nothing else."

"How came Lady Arkroyd to know?"

The lady becomes suddenly explicit. "My dear, it's, no, use, your, catechizing me! For I tell you I know nothing about it! You must ask Lady Arkroyd yourself. There they are!" Meaning that carriage-wheels are audible, identifiable as the Hall coming to Church.

And then the Rector had to mind his ps and qs. For he hadn't so much as thought of the text he should preach on.

However, he acquitted himself well, as he had done a hundred times under analogous circumstances. And then, as soon as he felt at liberty to be secular, his mind went back to the profane author's domestic affairs.

"My dear Lady Arkroyd, what's this about our friend Challis and his wife?"

The Baronet, who is close by—for he is a punctual church-goer: it is feudal—says, informedly, "A row in that quarter!" nods sagaciously, and contains further information in closed lips. Her ladyship supposes it's the usual thing; need we know anything about it? She dismisses nuptial quarrels, presumably resulting from infidelities, with graceful languor; perhaps reserving such as are within the pale, sanctioned by titles. Judith, with the most perfect self-command, immovably graceful, says sweetly: "Is there a row between Mr. and Mrs. Challis?" On which her mother suddenly becomes petulant and human—comes down from Olympus as it were—exclaiming: "Why, Ju, you know you told me so yourself, child!—what nonsense!"

"Perhaps I used the wrong word," says Ju, undisturbed. "Have we any business with Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs?"

"None at all, my dear! Jump in: you're keeping the horses." Her ladyship is in the carriage already, and will have no objection to driving away from Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs. It was just like dear Mr. Taylor to begin talking about them, with everyone about.

But Judith has another scheme. She is going to walk, thank you! Miss Caldecott and Phoebe and Joan may do the jumping in, and the carriage may drop them at the Rectory. Oh, very well!—if Miss Arkroyd really wants to walk. All settled. Only Joan puts in a demurrer; she means to walk with papa, and he will carry her on his shoulder. Joan is an anti-Sabbatarian of an advanced school, and often makes her father as bad as herself.

The Rectory is not really on the way to the Hall, but Judith's short cut to the latter is not far out of it for Joan and her man-servant, or ox, or ass—whichever is nearest—who ought to be doing no labour on this day. So, as soon as the Rector escapes from the small-talk of many parishioners on the road, and turns into the field path, Judith can effect an end she has in view. It was none of her doing, mind you!—this was the substance of her exordium—it was entirely mamma. What she referred to, after many minutes in abeyance, had revived the moment the last parishioner died away. But the Rector disallowed her line of pleading.

"Come, I say now, Judith!" He Christian-names the daughters of the Hall when alone with them, having known them as children. "Draw it mild! You must have told your madre something. Of course you did!"

"Yes. I was obliged to. But Mr. Challis did not mean me to. It was very difficult not to say something about what was in the letter...."

"From Mr. Challis?"

"Yes. Mamma knows his handwriting, and asked me what was in it. It was too long for me to say—nothing! So I told her what I knew she must hear afterwards, but begged her to say nothing about it."

"And then she told Bess?"

"I'm extremely sorry to have to turn and rend my mother—especially coming from Church—but you see she has her idiosyncrasies, the madre. I assure you, dear Mr. Taylor, she actually went straight to Miss Caldecott, and said with the most unblushing effrontery that she had promised not to tell anyone, but that she knew she might do so safely to anyone so discreet, and then repeated what I had said to her, with additions. She is a trying mother sometimes!"

"And then Bess comes and tells me! You're a nice lot of confidantes...." Something in Judith's look checks his joking tone as he glances round at her, and he says, "What?" And then, "Yes—go on!" Then a hesitation leaves her, and she speaks:

"I will tell you more than I told mamma, Mr. Taylor. I wish to, because I think your advice would be good. Mr. Challis wrote to me—a long letter—we are friends, you know; I have seen a good deal of him...."

"Quite right! I like Challis, you know."

"So do I;—though he might smoke less. However, we're none of us perfect.... Well!—I'm sorry to say the story is true. He fell out with Marianne—his wife is Marianne—the day after he arrived at home, although she had received him cordially enough on his arrival. She was at her mother's when he arrived, but came back to dinner. In the course of the evening they quarrelled, but I gathered from his letter that he thought it would blow over. Next morning they were civil to one another, but short of reconciliation. She went out in the morning, and in the afternoon he went away to a club-dinner. When he came back, quite late, he found a note from her, saying that she had gone away again to her mother's, and had taken her children with her."

"Good God!" The Rector's voice is a shocked undertone. "Was that Bob, and the two little girls...? Oh yes!—he told me a good deal of his family."

"Not Bob; he's at school. The others are her own children; he isn't."

"I never was more shocked in my life.... Yes!—Joanikin. You'd better get down and walk a bit. There we are, all alive and kicking!" Joan is deposited on the ground, her legs in evidence. "But do tell me!—'took away her children with her'! She can't, legally."

"She has done it illegally, I presume." Judith is very equable over this point. "She has done it actually, anyhow!"

"What an extraordinary thing!" The Rector cannot get over it.

"Well!—it's true! He came back from his club, poor man, to find his house empty and his children gone. And no explanation but the note. He roused up the servants that were left, a cook named Steptoe and the housemaid, who said their mistress and the nurse and children had packed a few things and gone away in a cab with a friend, about an hour after he left."

"It seems almost incredible—at first." He has to walk on a little way, fanning himself with his bandana handkerchief, before he can settle down from his amazement, and try for enlightening details. At last he says: "And then he wrote to you—when? Next day?"

"He left us, you remember, on Tuesday. His letter is dated Tuesday. The Tuesday after. Just a week."

"Would you object to my seeing it?" "I should not. Why should I? But I fancy he did not wish anyone else to see it. I could tell you what there was in it, just as well. And then, dear Mr. Taylor, you will see why he wrote at such length to me about it. You must be wondering."

"I was."

"It was simply this.... By-the-bye, I dare say you heard how he set me on fire—that night we had the dance?... No?... Well, it was all connected with that. You know this Marianne of his would keep on refusing to come and see us, and I asked him to show me her letter with a message to me in it. We were out in our little Tophet garden, and it was too dark to read it. I thought one could read by moonlight, or I wouldn't have asked for it. Mr. Challis lighted a vesta for me to read by, and set me on fire ... well—yes—I was just a little burned, on this shoulder. The worst of it was, her letter caught fire, and was burned to a cinder."

"But what harm did that do? She didn't want it back."

"No, she didn't. But there were two or three words on the back he hadn't read, and I couldn't tell him what they were. It seems she was surprised at his making no reference to them; and since he told me in his letter what he surmises they were, I can't say I wonder. I should have been."

"What were they? Or what does he suppose them to have been?"

"He might not like me to say, because she can never have meant them to be seen. It doesn't matter what they were...."

"Certainly, certainly! I quite understand."

"If he had known of them, he would have refused to show me the letter. As it turned out, it was most unfortunate. Because he said nothing except that he had given me her message to read...." Judith faltered—was coming to the difficult part.

"'Message to read,'" said the Rector connectively. "Yes?"

"Had given me her message to read, and had said nothing about when or where or how. And then the poor man had to account for the burning of the letter before he saw these words on the back ... oh yes!—of course, one ought always to tell the whole truth in a fix; I know that. But she had only his word for it that he had read the letter before and overlooked the postscript. Of course, what she thought was that her good gentleman was allowing a strange young lady—who isn't very popular with her—to open her confidential letters, and let him read them over her shoulder. Now do you appreciate the position, Rector?" Probably this young lady was very glad that this way of accounting for Mrs. Challis's resentment franked her of referring to the possible effect on a jealous wife's imagination of the loneliness of Tophet and the moonlight, both of which were sine qua non to a true account of the conflagration. Surmises about Challis's passionate outburst were not to be encouraged by reference to any of the surroundings that provoked them. Let them be ignored, "sequin net"—which is not expensive, but deadly in the moonlight—and all!

So unsuspicious was Athelstan Taylor of the inner soul of a thorough-paced flirt that he thought he might indulge in a little subcutaneous paternal amusement, as of wider experience, at this young lady's seeming innocence of the constructions Mrs. Challis might attach to details of the story told in full. He nodded assent to his own insight. Oh yes!—he appreciated the position thoroughly; Judith might be sure of that!—and points below the surface as well. But these belonged to a part of the drama altogether of minor importance, seeing how foregone a conclusion it was that no such thing as flirtation between a daughter of the Hall and a stray scribbler was possible. The fact that Challis had quarrelled with his wife was on another footing altogether. May there not have been some other cause?

"Challis puts his wife's resentment down entirely to this matter of the opening of the letter?" The Rector's question comes after cogitation.

"Ye-es!—entirely, this time."

"H'm!—have there been other times?"

"He does not say so. That is not quite what I meant. I should have said that she seems to have accused him of untruthfulness before, or at least hinted at it. I don't gather that there has ever been a rupture between them. Don't let's walk fast, or we shall be back before I've told you what I am in it—I mean, what Mr. Challis wants me to do."

"I can come a little way on with you ... why, of course, he wants you to write to his wife and confirm his version of this picturesque event. That's it, isn't it?"

"That's it. But what use will it be?"

Now for all Athelstan Taylor's superior insight into the world and its ways, it had not so far presented itself to him that a letter from Miss Arkroyd to Mrs. Challis on this subject might be like a red rag to a bull. It crossed his mind now, and kept him silent until Judith repeated: "What use will it be?" Then he replied uneasily: "Do you know?—I don't feel the ground firm under my feet. I shouldn't like to advise off-hand. What does your mother think?" "Oh, I haven't talked to mamma, beyond what I told you. You see—she's dear, of course; but she's a sieve. And these are Mr. Challis's affairs, not mine ... oh no!—I know he wouldn't mind my talking to you about them."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, I know! He would like me to talk to you, I'm certain."

"Would you mind talking to Bess about it? She's very sensible."

"I don't think Mr. Challis would like it. I am sure he would not mind you."

The Rector admitted this was possible, in his inner conscience. But he would make another suggestion: "Why not ask Addie what she thinks? She's coming to-morrow, on a visit to Lizarann."

"How is the little girl?"

"Getting on like a house on fire. But you will ask Addie? You needn't answer his letter yet, you know. At least, you needn't write to Mrs. Challis."

"Miss Fossett? Isn't she, though—isn't she somehow some sort of connection of Mrs. Challis?"

"Is she?"

"Or isn't it?... Oh, I know—it was a cousin of hers I met at the play. Mr. Challis hates her—the cousin. I didn't dislike her."

"She might know something...."

"I don't think Miss Fossett would see much of this—Mrs. Partridge, I think the name was. But Mrs. Partridge and Marianne are bosom-friends. So it might be worth...." She interrupted herself. "Only isn't Miss Fossett...?"

"Isn't she what?"

"Well, then, doesn't she feel very strongly on the Deceased Wife's Sister question?"

"What would that have to do with it?"

"You know he married his deceased wife's sister?"

"Eh?" said the Rector. "So he did." And then, thoughtfully: "I see—I see—I think I see."

"See what?"

"The reason why she took her children away. She thinks they are hers legally—thinks she has a right to them."

Judith evidently did not see the point involved, and the Rector had to explain that the children of an unmarried woman belong legally to their mother, and that probably Marianne, not being Challis's wife according to the law of the land, had imagined that her right to possession of them could be maintained in a law-court. "But surely—it could!" said Judith.

"Ah, my dear young lady!"—was the answer—"little you know the amazing resources of legislation for deciding that the weaker party is in the wrong!"

But Judith did not want the conversation to become a review of the iniquities of Law, a subject on which she knew Athelstan Taylor was given to being in revolt against constituted authority. So she brought him back to the real issue before the house.

"You haven't told me what you think I ought to write, Mr. Taylor. Please don't send me away to ask somebody else!—that's such very cold comfort. Give me real advice. What can I say?"

It took a little time to decide, but was clear when it came. "The question, I take it, isn't whether the letter will do any good. I tell you honestly, I don't think it will. But Challis asks you to write, and that settles the matter. Well!—say you write at his request, and that he asks you to write exactly what happened. Do it as literally as possible."

"Say anything about how grieved I am—painful circumstances—hope to hear misunderstanding completely removed—anything of that sort?"

"Oh no!—no, on the whole, certainly not! Better keep off that as much as possible!"

"Won't it be rather like ... snuffing poor Mrs. Challis out, if I don't end up somehow?"

"Hm—well! Suppose we go so far as to hope this will help to remove ... to remove ... what seems a perfectly groundless misunderstanding. Stop it at that. Quite enough! And I say, Judith, look here! In writing to Mrs. Challis, don't you go and show that you've heard particulars of the row. Stick to the explanation of the letter-business. Don't on any account show you know she has left her home, or that he has told about it."

"Won't that be what Mr. Tomes calls suppressio veri?"

"Tut—tut! If it is, not sending the letter at all will be suppressio of still more veri. You stick to what Challis asks for, and let him be responsible. Married couples, when they quarrel, are kittle cattle to shoe behind. Now we must say good-bye, or one of us will be late for lunch."

They had overshot the point at which the path diverged to the Rectory, and it was time to hark back. But before Judith was out of hearing the Rector called after her.

"Tell poor Challis I'm writing to him. I shall go and see him when I get up to town—some time next week. Good-bye!"