“So,” thought Alfred, “this is the way the world sees us.” And he began to frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself. Again he told himself that he was right; but his friend's thoughtless words had planted an uncomfortable doubt in his mind, and when he left the train to drive to his hotel, he was thinking very little about the new business relations upon which he was entering in Detroit, and very much about the domestic relations which he had just severed in Chicago. Had he been merely a “dull money-grubber”? Had he left his wife too much alone? Was she not a mere child when he married her? Could he not, with more consideration, have made of her a more understanding companion? These were questions that were still unanswered in his mind when he arrived at one of Detroit's most enterprising hotels. But later, having telephoned to his office and found that several matters of importance were awaiting his decision, he forced himself to enter immediately upon his business obligations. As might have been expected, Alfred soon won the respect and serious consideration of most of his new business associates, and this in a measure so mollified his hurt pride, that upon rare occasions he was affable enough to accept the hospitality of their homes. But each excursion that he made into the social life of these new friends, only served to remind him of the unsettled state of his domestic affairs. “How your wife must miss you!” his hostess would remark before they were fairly seated at table. “They tell me she is so pretty,” his vis-a-vis would exclaim. “When is she going to join you?” the lady on his left would ask. Then his host would laugh and tell the “dear ladies” that in HIS opinion, Alfred was afraid to bring his wife to Detroit, lest he might lose her to a handsomer man. Alfred could never quite understand why remarks such as this annoyed him almost to the point of declaring the whole truth. His LEAVING Zoie, and his “losing” her, as these would-be comedians expressed it, were two separate and distinct things in his mind, and he felt an almost irresistible desire to make this plain to all concerned.