"Why don't you make a clean breast of it at once? It happened before your marriage, you know."
"Oh, as for that, it would be all the same to Edna, if it had happened in a previous existence. But that isn't the question. It is a professional secret. I am under a pledge to an old client of mine for whom I acted. He is now in Boston, and I'm going to telegraph him that domestic peace demands my release from my pledge. So you see, Plowden, that if you can stave off my wife's suspicions until after Christmas, I will—"
"What?"
"Stave off Mrs. Plowden Number One."
"I'll do my best," groaned Plowden, "though the Lord has not gifted me with the art of deception."
"Inspiration will spring from necessity. Remember, it will bring us a peaceful Christmas and you—relief from Number One."
Together they entered the telegraph office, and Rutherford sent off his message to Boston.
II.
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
Miss Helen Fithian, a poor, elderly relative of Edna's, was spending the season—much more than the holidays—with the Rutherfords. She and Edna were sitting together in the library that afternoon, while the perturbed Plowden was learning his hard lesson of enforced duplicity. Mrs. Rutherford was in no humor for conversation. Miss Fithian nestled into the depths of a big arm-chair in a shadowy corner, clutched her lank red fingers over the tidy she was eternally crocheting and never finishing, dropped the eye-glasses from her bony nose into her lap, and went to sleep.