But when Wingfield, standing by that which he now knew was indeed his friend, watched the painful, laboured moving of the pencil across the slate which had been hurriedly fetched some two hours before from the young Hintons' nursery, all he saw, traced again and again, were the words: "Look after Louise. Look after Louise ..." and then at last: "I mean to die. I mean to die. I mean to die." V SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR? "Yes; there; wives be such a provoking class of society, because though they be never right, they be never more than half wrong."--THE TRANTER in _Under the Greenwood Tree_. I The fact that it was Mrs. Rigby's Silver Wedding Day, and that she was now awaiting her only brother who was to be the fourth at the dinner she and her husband, the respected Town Clerk of Market Dalling, were giving in honour of the event, appeared to her no reason why she should sit in her parlour with hands idle in her lap. There was a large work-basket on a table close to her elbow, and with quick, capable fingers she was engaged in mending a pillow-case. It was late June, and Mrs. Rigby sat by the widely open French windows which gave access to her garden--one of those fragrant walled gardens which still embellish the rear of the High Street in a very typically English market town. Now and again the work would drop between her hands, and lie unheeded on her knee, while she looked out, focussing her dark, bright eyes on the distant figure of a woman who sat in a summer-house situated at the extreme end of the garden; and as Mrs. Rigby gazed thoughtfully at this, her other wedding guest, her whole face would soften--so might a mother look at a daughter whom instinct prompted her to love, and reason to condemn as foolish. And yet the sitting figure was that of a contemporary of Mrs. Rigby, being, as a matter of fact, a certain Matilda Wellow, who had been her bridesmaid twenty-five years ago to-day, and who was now, in more than one sense of the term, the most substantial spinster of Market Dalling. The sound of the door behind her quietly opening and shutting made Mrs. Rigby turn round, and a moment later she was looking up at a tall, straight, still young-looking man, who, clad in evening dress, stood smiling down at her. He was David Banfield, her half-brother. "Why, you've put on all your war-paint!" she exclaimed in half-pretended dismay. "Didn't you know that there was only Matilda Wellow coming?" "I don't know that I thought anything about it," he answered, more gaily than his sister was now in the habit of hearing him speak. "I dressed out of compliment to you, Kate, and because--well, I've got into the way of it lately. But pray don't let Matt think that he must needs follow my example!" Then he sat down by Mrs. Rigby, and gazed out with quick, sensitive appreciation at the old walled garden. "You're a wonderful gardener, Kate," he said suddenly.