“Look here,” he said, with an unsteady voice, “this is the letter old Davies gave me on Tuesday;” and then he added in a lower tone, “God forgive me, I don’t deserve it,” with a half sob. Very coldly Nancy took the letter. She knew by instinct what it must be. It was written in a rather illegible but pretty handwriting, not at all like, but somehow superior she felt to the pointed precision of her own. “I am going to your wedding to-morrow, Arthur dear; not to see you, but to be there, that there may be some one that loves you all the same. That always goes without saying. We think that you may not have money enough to do all you want, so we have just been to the bank to get this. Dear, dear Arthur, God bless you! Mamma shakes her head, but she says it all the same. “LUCY.” And then there was added in another hand: “Surely I say it, surely I must say it always. And God forgive you, oh, my cruel boy.” Nancy puzzled over this for some time. She began to read it aloud and read it wrong, so that it took a ridiculous sound; then laughed; while Arthur made a furious step towards her to seize it out of her hand. She grew serious then, which quickened her wits and made her finish her reading in silence. When she had done so she flung it to him, letting the two notes enclosed flutter to the ground, and without a word turned round and shut the door violently in his face. He caught the letter; but the two fifty pound notes lay between him and the door, crumpled by Nancy’s angry fingers. He stood petrified for the moment, too much surprised to be either hurt or angry. Was this the way in which his wife received his first appeal to her sympathy? the first mention of those who, Arthur suddenly remembered, were next to herself the dearest to him in the world? Somehow he had forgotten this until now; but it suddenly gleamed upon him; a kind of revelation. Certainly it was so; his mother and sister, were they not his dearest friends, the most generous and kind? Was it possible that his wife could read this letter and not be touched? and yet she had tossed it at him, had crumpled up the notes like waste paper. Was this the attitude she meant to adopt towards his family? and he had been so tolerant of hers! Nancy did not say a word on the subject when they met again. She looked as if she had been crying; but said nothing, plunging into some indifferent subject with unusual interest. But it was not reasonable that the husband of three days could bear the matter like this. He said something about “my sister’s letter,” as soon as he had a chance. “We shall have a little more money to spend now, thanks to my mother’s thoughtfulness,” he said. “Oh, your mother!” she flung away from him, flushing crimson--a colour that meant anger as he already knew.