'Indeed? In what way?'
'Looks so wretchedly ill, for one thing.'
'We must take her about. What do you think of doing tomorrow?'
By feminine device of indirect question, Alma obtained some understanding of the change that had come upon Mrs. Abbott during the past three years. Harvey's disclosures did not violate the reticence imposed upon him by that hour in which he had beheld a woman's remorseful anguish; he spoke only of such things as were manifest to everyone who had known Mary Abbott before her husband's death; of her social pleasures, her intellectual ambitions, suddenly overwhelmed by a great sorrow.
'I suppose she ought to be doing much better things than teaching children,' said Alma.
'Better things?' repeated Harvey, musing. 'I don't know. It all depends how you regard it.'
'Is she very clever?'
'Not appallingly,' he answered, with a laugh. 'It's very possible she is doing just what she ought to be—neither more nor less. Her health seems to be the weak point.'
'Do you think she has enough to live upon?'
Harvey knitted his brows and looked uneasy.