found to be quite illegally worded-utterly useless. So, pending a decision, she kept it carefully in her pocket.

She was very busy. There was much to do. Things had been unsettled so long that it was a positive joy to push through with what wanted doing.

Having one evening written a great many letters, she sat down to burn up a quantity of notes, letters, invitations, funeral débris, which had accumulated uncomfortably.

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Once or twice she drew out a certain paper, and looked at it undecidedly. Why not? A little nerve was all that was needed. Every woman's first duty is to secure the well-being of her own family. Be just before you are generous." Surely that was in the Bible somewhere. If her children's father had forgotten his first duty, was it for her to do so also?

She laid the sheet on the fire deliberately, making room among the accumulation of brittle ashes.

A slight sound disturbed her, and, snatching the paper away, she turned from her seat on the fender stool, and looked toward the door.

Réné came forward quietly, looking at her fixedly. "Réné!" she cried, fiercely, "how dare you come in upon me like this? What do you mean by it?"

Still the deep gray eyes looked at her without altering their expression.

Another instant, and strong excitement worked in

them.

"Papa! Papa, dear!" he cried, "what is it? What is it you want to tell me? No, mammawill hear what he wants to say!"

-go away! I

The woman on the hearth was as if she had been turned to stone.

The boy came forward until he nearly touched her.

Then he turned and laid his hand on a small table, and leaned over it.

"Yes, I am here. Yes, dear papa-oh, again! I could not hear! Go away, mamma! He shall speakNo-I won't go!"

With a faint cry, the woman leaped to her feet and shook him by the arm. She knew he was asleep; she knew that she ought not to wake him. Yet could she bear to hear all this from absent-minded Réné, who she thought had taken no particular notice of her desire to keep him from hearing his father's last muttered murmurings?

"Leave me alone!" he cried, fiercely, wrenching his shoulder away.

Suddenly she recovered her self-control. This would never do. Every one in the household knew his or her duty when Réné took to walking in his sleep, as he did after excitement.

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She laid her hand on his head. Réné, my boy— come!"

With a startled tremor he waked, and would have fallen had she not caught him in her arms.

"Réné, my dear boy!"

He looked round with dazed eyes. "Mamma!"

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Hush, hush, dear-it is all right. You have been walking in your sleep; sit down a moment," and she pushed him into a chair by the fire. He rubbed his surprised eyes and laughed.

"How stupid I am!"

Then, seeing him look indifferently at the litter on the hearth, she said, quickly:

"Yes-isn't it a mess? I am quite hot with burning all sorts of rubbish. But come, let me take you up to bed. I can't have you catching cold."

"You have dropped one," he said, idly, stooping with instinctive politeness to pick it up.

She snatched it from him, and crushed it into her pocket.

"Why do you crush it like that? One corner was burned already," he said, sleepily, as if he did not expect any reply.

"Come, come, Réné!" she said, peremptorily, "I must see you safely to bed."

With a great yawn he rose, and let her lead him away.

CHAPTER XXV

Now it did not at all suit Mr. Hugh Denton to think that his wife had given him the slip. Her angry words he had certainly pushed from his memory with a mocking curl of the lip, and shrug of the shoulder, and for a few days he went on self-complacently enough, thinking that as relations were a trifle strained Margaret was quite as well away.

Moreover, even in the City, he found it convenient to be a shade more subdued, a little less cheery and jocund. Now and again he could hardly fail to see that his friendliest remarks were received with quite an incomprehensible stare. Several men he knew well passed his carriage in a hurry, and found themselves another farther up the train.

But he was used to biding his time.

"They'll come round-Let them be!" he thought to himself with a sour laugh. "They'll soon find it ain't worth while to give me any of their impudence! This last affair has been a bit strong for them. But it's all confounded nonsense! I've done quite as good before, and hope to do quite as good again. Bless my soul!" And so intimate was his knowledge of his friends who had flocked round him so assiduously in the past, that they did come round. Not all in a week or a month, but eventually. So in the mean time he drew a deep breath, ducked to the wave, and came up smiling on the crest of the next.

But that was business. His domestic affairs were, as he happily expressed it, "a cat of quite another color." It would never do for Margaret to carry her tantrums beyond the manageable point. He did not bear her any malice so far. In fact, he made quite generous allowance for her, considering her relationship to certain parties. Yes, the relationship was certainly-awkward; yet after all how sweetly the baronet had let himself in. It was worth ten years' angling to do such a neat thing as that. It was as beautiful job as ever Denton could wish to see.

But when it dawned on him that he had written already three times to his wife without receiving reply, affairs began to put on another aspect altogether.

It would not suit him at all to have a domestic scandal. His wife and his establishment were part of his stock-in-trade.

Margaret had always played her part beautifully. He would allow her credit for that, but considering the future he must admit anxiety.

Hugh, though used to biding his time, preferred to know his ground, even though he might at the moment have no intention of treading upon it. So he wrote a short peremptory note to his wife, suggesting, in his happy sarcastic style, that she might at least give him some faint notion as to her immediate plans, as it would be of convenience to him to know them.

Margaret, on receiving this masterpiece, tossed it into Maud's lap.

"The fourth!" she remarked dryly. "They grow better and better, choicer and choicer! This last shows the genuine metal!"

"Margaret, my dear child, I can't help wishing that you did not quite take up your present attitude."

"No use no use, Maudie!" Out came the old pet