"MELICENT LUTWYCHE."
Gwendolen rose from her seat as the letter was concluded.
"Well," she said, "I always knew Millie was worth the lot of us. I shouldn't wonder if she asks you to Lone Ash, girls, and gives you a good time. She doesn't bear malice, as I should in her place. We were brought up on scruples, not principles. We were urged to a certain course of conduct, not because it was right, but because it was the proper thing. Conventions were to us instead of Commandments. Here is Barbara, wanting to do a thing which at worst is only a social blunder, and she is treated as if she wanted her neighbour's husband. I'm on your side, Babs; you may count on me."
The vicar and his wife found themselves, as usual, in a minority of two.
* * * * * * * *
Two or three years after these events, the Bishop of Pretoria told the outlines of the story of Hubert and Melicent to a lady for whom he had a great respect.
When he had finished, she asked, in dissatisfied tones, whether the marriage had turned out a happy one?
He replied that it was completely happy; almost ideally so.
"You ask as though the story had not pleased you," he added, in tones of disappointment.
She shrugged her shoulders.