"Why, I mean--I mean--my dear fellow, you know what I mean! Whether you had better do it." This was the very thing I had not intended to do, for I saw how wise my wife's plan was, and how we really had nothing more to do with the matter, after having satisfied the utmost demands of humanity. "You think I had better not," said Tedham. "No," I said, but I felt that I was saying it too late, "I don't think anything about it." "I have been thinking about it, too," said Tedham, as if I had confessed and not denied having an opinion in the matter. "I have been thinking about it ever since I saw you last night, and I don't believe I have slept, for thinking of it. I know how you and Mrs. March feel about it, and I have tried to see it from your point of view, and now I believe I do. I am not going to see my daughter; I am going away." He stood up, in token of his purpose, and at the same moment my wife entered the room. She must have been hurrying to do so from the moment I left her, for she had on a fresh dress, and her hair had the effect of being suddenly, if very effectively, massed for the interview from the dispersion in which I had lately seen it. She swept me with a glance of reproach, as she went up to Tedham, in the pretence that he had risen to meet her, and gave him her hand. I knew that she divined all that had passed between us, but she said: "Mr. March has told you that we have seen Mrs. Hasketh, and that you can find your daughter at her house to-morrow evening?" "Yes, and I have just been telling him that I am not going to see her." "That is very foolish--very wrong!" my wife began. "I know you must say so," Tedham replied, with more dignity and force than I could have expected, "and I know how kind you and Mr. March have been. But you must see that I am right--that she is the only one to be considered at all." "Right! How are you right? Have _you_ been suggesting that, my dear?" demanded my wife, with a gentle despair of me in her voice. It almost seemed to me that I had, but Tedham came to my rescue most unexpectedly. "No, Mrs. March, he hasn't said anything of the kind to me; or, if he has, I haven't heard it. But you intimated, yourself, last night, that she might be so situated--" "I was a wicked simpleton," cried my wife, and I forebore to triumph, even by a glance at her; "to put my doubts between you and your daughter in any way. It was romantic, and--and--disgusting. It's not only your right to see her, it's your _duty_. At least it's your duty to let her decide whether she will let you see her. What nonsense! Of course she will! She must bear her part in it. She ought not to escape it, even if she could. Now you must just drop all idea of going away, and you must stay, and you must go to see your daughter. There is no other way to do." Tedham shook his head stubbornly. "She has borne her share, already, and I won't inflict my penalty on her innocence--"