“No, we had him nearly sober. But you see--” And Clive paused for a moment, painfully embarrassed. “The truth is, Roger had been to a doctor, and been told it might take him a year or two to get cured.” “Clive!” she cried. “Clive! And you mean that in the face of that, he proposed to go on and marry?” “Well, Sylvia, you see--” And the young man hesitated still longer. He was crimson with embarrassment, and suddenly he blurted out: “The truth is, the doctor told him to marry. That was the only way he’d ever get cured.” Sylvia was almost speechless. “Oh! Oh!” she cried, “I can’t believe you!” “That’s what the doctors tell you, Sylvia. You don’t understand--it’s just as I told you, a woman can’t understand. It’s a question of a man’s nature----” “But Clive--what about the wife and her health? Has the wife no rights whatever?” “The truth is, Sylvia, people don’t take this disease with such desperate seriousness. You understand, it isn’t the one that everybody knows is dangerous. It doesn’t do any real harm----” “Look at Elaine! Don’t you call that real harm?” “Yes, but that doesn’t happen often, and they say there are ways it can be prevented. Anyway, fellows just can’t help it! God knows we’d help it if we could.” Sylvia thought for a moment, and then came back to the immediate question. “It’s evident what Roger could do in this case. He is young, and Celeste is still younger. They might wait a couple of years and Roger might take care of himself, and in time it might be properly arranged.” But Clive did not seem too warm to the proposition, and Sylvia, who knew Roger Peyton, was not long in making out the reason. “You mean you don’t think he has character enough to keep straight for a year or two?” “To tell you the honest truth, we talked it out with him, and he wouldn’t make any promises.” To which Sylvia answered: “Very well, Clive--that settles it. You can help me find some man for Celeste who loves her a little more than that!” 17. That afternoon came Aunt Nannie, the Bishop’s wife, in shining chestnut-coloured silk to match a pair of shining chestnut-coloured horses. Other people, it appeared, had been making inquiries into Roger Peyton’s story, and other people besides Clive Chilton had been telling the truth. Aunt Nannie gathered the ladies of the family in a hurried conference, and Sylvia was summoned to appear before it--quite as in the days of her affair with Frank Shirley. “Miss Margaret” and Aunt Varina were solemn and frightened, as of old; and, as of old, Aunt Nannie did the talking. “Sylvia, do you know what people are saying about you?” “Yes, Aunt Nannie” said Sylvia. “Oh, you do know?” “Yes, of course. And I knew in advance that they would say it.” Something about the seraphic face of Sylvia, chastened by terrible suffering, must have suggested to Mrs. Chilton the idea of caution. “Have you thought of the humiliation this must inflict upon your relatives?”