"Come here, Wicks!" I called. "I know when you hang around a room unnecessarily, as you have been doing for the last ten minutes, that you have something on your mind. Now, out with it." "I was merely going to arsk, sir, hif I 'ad better begin lookin' arfter another place, sir?" That was an extraordinary question. Wicks had been with the Feldersons ever since they were married. "What put that idea into your head, Wicks?" He was far more confused than I had ever seen him. "Meanin' no disrespect, sir, and I don't mean to be hinquisitive about what doesn't concern me, but I couldn't 'elp 'earin' a bit of what took place this arfternoon, sir." Good lord! I'd forgotten there might have been other witnesses to the scene of the afternoon besides myself. "Do the other servants know about this, Wicks?" "Hi think they do, sir, seein' as 'ow Mrs. Felderson 'as been actin' and talkin' so queer." "What do you mean?" I demanded. Wicks struggled for composure. The subject was evidently most distasteful to his conservative and conventional British nature. "Hit was Annie, Mrs. Felderson's maid, sir, that hupset the servants. W'en she came down from hup-stairs, she said as 'ow Mrs. Felderson was a ragin' and a rampagin' around 'er room, sayin' that if Mr. Felderson didn't give 'er a divorce, she would do violence to 'im, sir." "Did Annie hear her say that?" I questioned. "She says so, sir." The whole thing was so monstrous that I gasped. For this awful dime-novel muck to be tumbled into the middle of my family was too sickening. My sister, running away from her husband with another man and now threatening, in the hearing of the servants, to kill him, unless he gave her a divorce, disgusted me with its cheap vulgarity. I hid, as best I could, the tempest that was brewing inside me. "Wicks, Mrs. Felderson is not well. Tell the servants that she is greatly depressed over an accident that happened to a friend. At the present time, she is so upset over that, she really doesn't know what she is saying. Quiet them in some way, Wicks! And tell Annie to stay with Mrs. Felderson!" "Very good, sir." He started to leave. "And, Wicks--" "Yes, sir." "There is no need of your looking for another place." "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!" Wicks departed and I was left to my gloomy thoughts. Helen must be brought to her senses. Mary and I must work, either to bring her back to Jim, or, if that prove hopeless, to see that the divorce was hurried as much as possible. The very thought of having Mary along with me, with her inexhaustible fund of God-given humor and common sense, gave me a vast amount of comfort and confidence. At this point, Jim came in. He had had a bath and a shave and had put on a dinner-coat, looking a lot more fit to grapple with his troubles than he had the last time I had seen him. Only in his eyes did he show the shock he'd received that day. "Communing with yourself in the dark, Bupps?"--his voice was natural and easy.