Now this remark had no reference to any divorce scandal possible with the woman. So far as such matters are concerned, any one who had ever known her, might safely have made affidavit she was and would be as utterly without reproach as without fear; but there is another, and if one may say so, without fear of censure, higher sense in which a woman holds her husband's honour in her hand, and that was the sense in which the remark was made. Just and courteous towards her tradespeople, a gentlewoman in her dealings with servants, not keen and sharp with porters and cab-drivers, considerate to the governess, a stranger within her gates--beyond all things fair in her dealings with her husband's friends--all these points ought not, I think, to be forgotten when one speaks of a man's honour held by a woman. For truly, she can fail in no single incident I have mentioned without casting a shadow on the judgment of the man who chose her, and it is more than probable Dolly thought this too, for ere Mr. Werner had got a hundred yards from the gate she had sped down the walk, and was flying along the road after him. "Mr. Werner!" she cried panting. And then he stopped and retraced his steps towards her. "I cannot bear it," she said. And he noticed she had to sit down on the bank by the wayside to recover her breath. "I cannot endure, when you are so unhappy, to be hard, as you call it. I know Archie would be vexed if he knew I refused to be friends with you. So please, Mr. Werner, do come back and have some fruit and milk--and I do forgive you from my heart." "There is something else, Dolly," he observed. Sooner or later it came natural to all men and all women when nature asserted itself, to call Mortomley's poor Dolly by her Christian name. "What else?" she asked. "Oh! I remember, and I am afraid that is a great deal easier. I do hope God will forgive you too, and us all, and I pray he will make you and my dear Lenny very happy in the future." He stood, with her hand clasped in his, looking at her intently. "You will not be sorry for this hereafter," he said at last. "When the evil day comes to you which must come to all, you may be glad to remember the words you have spoken this minute. Thank you very, very much. No," he added, in answer to a request that he would return to Wood Cottage; "I have had pleasant tidings spoken to me, and I will leave with their sound in my ears. Good-bye. When you say your prayers to-night do not forget to remember me." CHAPTER IX. THE NEW YELLOW. All that night, after saying her prayers--in which she remembered Mr. Werner and his wife, and all other people who were in sore distress--Mrs. Mortomley lay awake, a strange sense of trouble oppressing her.