"Pattie was so ridiculous. Wouldn't tell this, and didn't choose to answer that, and so mysterious! So I just got hold of the letters, and found out for myself. And I'd a right, too. As if we weren't taking her in, and doing for her, all at our own expense—and she, if it wasn't for us, pretty near a beggar! If I hadn't a right, I should like to know who would have! Oh, I'm not ashamed of it! I'd do it over again, this minute. And so I told Pattie." Cragg was roused for once. He had always been a man of honourable feeling. "I would not have believed it—even of you!" he said pointedly. "If somebody else had told me, I should have said it was impossible." "Well, then, it isn't impossible; and you're wiser to-night than you were this morning!" retorted his wife. Cragg stood up. "Now I understand!" he said. "I understand—and I do not wonder—that Pattie should wish to live no longer under my roof. I have never been more ashamed—for myself—and for you!" Then he left the room. CHAPTER XIV Little Dot— A Catastrophe THE household atmosphere was thick and uncomfortable during many days. Pattie heard nothing of that late Sunday evening talk, for Cragg would not complain to her of his wife, and Mrs. Cragg felt that she would gain little by repeating what had passed; but there was a general sense of strain. Cragg had become grave and silent; Mrs. Cragg was much out of temper; and Pattie found skill needed to steer straight. But for little Dot's devotion to herself, she would have felt the condition of things unbearable. Nearly a week later Cragg, meeting her on the stairs, stopped to say: "If you are still bent on leaving us, Pattie, I shall not hinder you." Pattie again thought that the tone meant annoyance. She looked up with moist eyes. "I don't think you understand." "Yes, I do. I understand—better than I did last Sunday evening. I'm not surprised that you wish to go. And I have no right to prevent it—if I could. I will help you all I can. Not that I like you to go; but I can say nothing." Pattie knew then that, in one way or another, the truth had reached him. She was glad and sorry; glad that Mrs. Cragg should have told him, if indeed she had done so; and sorry that he should be distressed. "But I do not mean that I am in a great hurry," she said. "I do not want to go directly. Perhaps I shall not hear of anything to do for a long while. It is only that in time I ought,—I cannot go on being dependent. And you know this is not a new thought. Ever since I came I have said that it was only for a time." "Yes, I know. But now—it's natural you should wish it more." What could Pattie say? She could not deny the truth of his words. Cragg sighed and passed on. To an upright man, it is a terrible feeling that he cannot trust his own wife, that she has not even so far the sense of honesty as to be ashamed of her own meanness when she has acted meanly.