'The scandal cannot now be prevented,' said Canon Wrottesley. 'I heard myself from Mr. Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. My love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; Mrs. Avory must send for her own relations, if she has any, to help her out of this regrettable business. I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at all.' 'I have had my letters addressed here for the last two days,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. The canon rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the room. 'I don't know what people will say,' he said, his forehead knitted into a frown and his fingers impatiently letting off small pistol-shots against his palm. There had never been a better wife or mother, he admitted to himself, than Henrietta Wrottesley, but she was a child still in many ways. 'To-morrow is Sunday,' he went on, 'and we must appear in church together. In this way only can we shut people's mouths and prevent their talking, and although I don't like anything in the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need know that you have been staying here.' 'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, still in that unyielding tone of gentle regret, 'that it is too late to keep my movements secret. There is an account of the accident in the local paper in which it is stated that I was staying here at the time.' Canon Wrottesley loved to see his name in print, and looked with interest at the cutting while Mrs. Wrottesley added, 'I sent the communication to the paper.' The canon found himself wondering in a puzzled way what was the ultimatum that a man should impose upon a woman. What, in point of fact, was the force that could be brought to bear upon the case? In primitive days the matter would have been easily enough settled, but in modern times moral force is the only lever, and although most women, he admitted, were very easily influenced by moral force, it struck him painfully that upon this occasion his wife was not going to be moved by it. A beneficent Providence who, I think we may allow, comes often to the assistance of persons whose storm rages in quite a small and narrow teacup so long as they are genuinely attached to each other, may have designed that at this moment Lydia of the heavy foot should enter with the second post's letters, and amongst those which had been sent on to Mrs. Wrottesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss Abingdon's handwriting.