For the first time the Christian name by which she thought of him passed her lips in her eagerness of sympathy: "Arthur!" "Yes, about a month ago now. You remember the man she was lunching with that day--Oliver Wyse? He's taken her away." "Oh, but how terrible! Forgive me for--for----!" "There's nothing to forgive. You couldn't know. But it'll be common property soon. You--you mustn't think too badly of her, Marie." But Marie came of a stock that holds by the domestic virtues--for women, at all events. She said nothing; she pursed up her lips ominously. Was she too going to talk about 'the unfortunate woman'? No, she was surely too just to dispose of the matter in that summary fashion! If she understood, she would do justice. The old desire for her sympathy revived in him--for sympathy of mind; he wanted her to look at the affair as he did. To that end she must know more of Bernadette, more of Godfrey and of Oliver Wyse--things that the world at large would never know, though the circle of immediate friends might be well enough aware of them. He tried to hint some of these things to her, in rather halting phrases about uncongeniality, want of tastes in common, not 'hitting it off,' and so forth. But Marie was not much disposed to listen. She would not be at pains to understand. Her concern was for her friend. "I'm only thinking what it must have meant to you--what it must mean," she said. "Because you were so very very fond of her, weren't you? When did you hear of it?" "I was in the house when it happened." Now she listened while he told how Bernadette had gone--told all save his own madness. "And you had to go through that!" Marie murmured. "I deserved it. I'd made such a fool of myself," he said. His self-reproach told her enough of his madness; nay, she read into it even more than the truth. "How could she let you, when she loved another man all the time?" she cried. "She never thought about me in that way for a moment. And I----" He broke off. He would not tell the exact truth; but neither would he lie to Marie. She judged the case in its obvious aspect--a flirt cruelly reckless, a young man enticed and deluded. "I wouldn't have believed it of her! You deserve and you'll get something better than that! Don't waste another thought on her, Arthur." "Never mind about me. I want you to see how it happened that Bernadette could----" "Oh, Bernadette!" Her voice rang in scorn over the name. "Will nothing cure you?" He smiled, though ruefully. This was not now cold condemnation of his old idol; it was a burst of generous indignation over a friend's wrong. Bernadette's treatment of her husband, her child, her vows, was no longer in Marie's mind; it was the usage of her friend. Could the friend be angry at that?