It was Wednesday evening when I heard a car come up the drive. I knew at once that it was Bill. I had barely time to turn out all the lights but the pink-shaded one by the bed, and to lay a handkerchief across my eyes, when he came in. "Well, Clara," he said, standing just inside the door, "I thought we'd better talk this over." "Bill!" I said, from under the handkerchief. "I should have come out sooner," he said without moving, "but at first I could not trust myself. I needed a little time." "Who told you?" "That doesn't matter, does it? Everybody knows it. But that's not the question. The real issue is between you and me and that--that nincompoop, Waite." "What has Roger got to do with it?" I looked out from under the handkerchief, and he was livid, positively. "Bill," I said desperately, "will you come over and sit down on the side of the bed and let me tell you the whole story?" "I won't be bamboozled, Clara; this is serious. If you've got anything to say, say it. I'll sit here." He sat down just inside the door on a straight chair and folded his long arms. It was a perfectly hopeless distance. "Bill!" I said appealingly, and he came over and sat, very uncompromising and stiff, on the side of the bed. I put out my hand, and after a moment's hesitation he took it, but I must say without enthusiasm. I felt like the guiltiest wretch unhung. That's what makes me so perfectly furious now. "You see, Bill," I said, "it was like this." And I told him the whole thing. About halfway through he dropped my hand. "It's been an awful lesson, Bill," I ended up. "I'll never say a word again about your enjoying yourself the way you want to. You can swim and play golf and shoot all you like, and--and sleep after dinner, if you'll only forgive me. Bill, suppose I had married Roger Waite!" He drew a long breath. "So that was it, old dear!" he said. "Well, all right. We'll put the whole thing in the discard." And he leaned over and put his arms round me. * * * * * That ought to be the end of the story. I'd had a lesson and so had some of the others. As Carrie Smith said afterward, to have a good time is one thing, but to be happy is entirely different, and the only way to be happy is to be smug and conventional and virtuous. I never say anything when she starts that line of conversation. But once or twice I've caught her eye, and she has had the grace to look uneasy. But that's not all. There is more to the story, and now and then I eye Bill, and wonder when he will come and tell me the whole thing. For the other day, in the back of Bill's chiffonier, I came across the letter to him Harry Delaney said he had lost. And Bill had received it Monday morning! That is not all. Clamped to it was a note from Peter Arundel, and that is why I am writing the whole story, using names and everything. It was a mean trick, and if Bill wants to go to Maisie Brown's wedding he can go. I shall not. This is Peter's note: