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questioned, leaning over to her border and nipping off here and there a withered flower. ‘If they don’t die when their sons marry—what are they to do?’

‘Withdraw, I suppose,’ said Ingpen after a pause, watching her.

‘Yes, withdraw; that’s what I did. That’s why I am here, in the country. Only they followed me.’

‘Ah, yes; Norah was telling me yesterday that they had just come.— Was that against her will? Your con doesn’t look to me a person to force his will on a recalcitrant wife.’

‘It was by her will.—It was her idea.—It was on my account they came,’ said Monica, and as she broke and broke the withered flowers with fingers in which she felt her anger still thrilling, she wondered at circumstance that had brought her to such confidences. ‘I don’t understand; I can’t understand.—I have never understood her. Perhaps it is my fault. I never saw her lose her temper before.—Perhaps it’s my fault. She feels that I don’t care for her.’

Ingpen said nothing to that. He remained, taking a few steps here and there on the lawn, watching her while she picked the dead flowers, filling her