"It's enough that I do know," said Edith seriously. "Women are loyal to each other, Rodney. I never can understand why people say we have no sense of honour. It's really most unfair. Women tell each other everything and help each other whenever they can." "Well I hope to heaven nobody will go bleating to Mrs. Turner about Jenny Eaves, that's all," said Rodney. "Jim's got enough to put up with already, God knows." Edith was quick to perceive his admission, but she let the subject drop for the moment. A few days later, having cogitated the matter from various angles, she asked Mrs. Turner to tea and added mysteriously to her note of invitation, "I'm anxious to have a little private talk with you. There is something I feel you ought to know, and though it is a difficult topic for me to touch on, I feel I must make the effort to do so." In writing this note Edith was actuated by perfectly pure motives. Her own words as to the honourableness of her sex had resounded pleasantly in her ears. Thinking the matter over afterwards it seemed to her no less than her duty, if rumours were gathering unpleasantly round Jim Turner's name, to repeat them to his wife, in order that Mrs. Turner might scotch them by some decisive action. Only one form of decisive action occurred to Edith. She assumed that Mrs. Turner would behave as she, Edith Greene, would behave in a similar predicament--though such a thing was almost unimaginable. She would deal summarily with her husband, pointing out where his duty lay, and emphasising the necessity for a clean break from temptation in the form of the actress, and she would then arrange to be seen about on good terms with her husband, in public and at the houses of their various friends. The whole thing would then blow over, and Edith Greene decided that in that case Rodney would not be condoning a moral wrong by going for his usual holiday with Jim Turner. Mrs. Turner came to tea. She chatted pleasantly till she had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a sandwich, and then, laying down her cup, she came straight to the point. "I think you wanted to speak to me about something," she said quietly. "I do, Mrs. Turner," answered Edith. "It is extremely awkward for me to do so; I don't even know you very well, but it seemed to me that as an acquaintance I owed it to you to repeat to your face what people are saying behind your back." Mrs. Turner stiffened. "Indeed," she said. "And what are people saying behind my back?" Edith answered courageously. "There is a great deal of gossip centring round your husband's name," she said. "You probably know nothing about it; the wife is often the last person to hear of these things. People suspect him of having an affair with an actress; in fact it is more than a suspicion. He has been seen about everywhere with this Miss Eaves, and my husband says he never even sees him at lunch at the club nowadays."