"Yes, that was the whole story, as you say, dear," said his wife, gently; "but the poor girl could not help it. And—and she did not understand it herself at all."
"You make me provoked, Nora," said Cuthbert, almost sharply. "She wasn't a fool. She tried the same game on me a year or two later; but that time it didn't work. She even went the length of talking ill of you to me—saying little cutting things—when she found I had utterly succumbed to your attractions. I have to laugh yet when I think of it,—that is, when it don't make me too angry to laugh,—how I gave her a good round talking to." He laughed now at the recollection.
"She must have taken me for her delightful old grandparent the way I lectured her. But when I remembered how loyal you were to her, it just made my blood boil and I told her so."
Mr. Bailey shifted his position and began to contemplate giving a verdict emphatically against the absent lady, when Nora checked him by a wave of her fan.
"Yes, I know she did, Cuthbert, and I know everything you said to her. You were very cruel—if you had understood, as you did not and do not yet. She came and told me all about it." Cuthbert Wagner gave a low, incredulous whistle, and even Mr. Bailey looked sceptical.
"She came back from that drive with you the most wretched girl you ever saw. Her humiliation was pitiful to see. Her self-reproach was touching and real. I believe she would have killed herself if I had seemed to blame her."
Cuthbert snapped out:
"Humph! Very likely; and gone and done the same thing again the next day."
"Possibly that is true—if there had been a next day with a new temptation that was too strong for her on the shore where she landed after death If—"
"If the Almighty had shown a preference for some one else, hey?" asked Mr. Bailey, flippantly.