"I suppose she'll have to know," Wheeler admitted softly. "It will cut her pretty deep." He was wondering whether she could forgive this weak fellow, crawling back to her now, his courage gone, broken for life, as he judged. He suspected that she might pardon him even now, though she had left him inexplicably. She would forgive her husband when he was at the end of his rope; she was made that way. The softness of character in such women irritated him, for the moment. There were other women whom he liked and admired less than her,--Mrs. Phillips was one,--who would not tolerate a flabby sinner like this man. But to Helen, disgrace would make little difference, perhaps would cause her to cling more closely to the dishonored man. And he was sorry for it all, because he loved the woman, and he could feel her tragedy, though he was impervious to the man's. "Women have bum luck sometimes," he reflected aloud. "They have to take all the man's troubles as well as their own." Then he added not unkindly: "You had better think well what it means to her and to the children before you do anything to make matters worse. I'll keep an eye on what goes on here and let you know if you're needed--if you can do any good." Neither offered to shake hands, and Hart went out of the office without replying to the last remark. In the vestibule of the building he hesitated a moment, as if to get his bearings, and then slowly walked down the crowded street in the direction of his office. The city sights were curiously foreign to him, as if he had come back to them after a long period of absence. The jostle of human beings on the pavement, the roar of the streets, were like the meaningless gyrations of a machine. With a repugnance that weighted his steps, he turned in at the door of his building and crowded into one of the cages that were swallowing and disgorging their human burdens in the mid-forenoon. In his office there had settled an air of listless idleness, now that Cook, the mainspring of the place, was no longer at his post. Without looking at the accumulated mail on his desk, Hart called the stenographer and dictated to her some instructions for his partner, Stewart, who had just landed in New York on his way home from a vacation in Europe. The girl received his dictation with an offish, impertinent glance in her eyes that said, "Something's wrong with this place, I guess." When the architect had finished, she said:-- "Say, Graves was in here twice this morning and wanted me to let him know as soon as you came in. He wanted to know where you were. What shall I say to him?" Hart thought a moment before replying. He did not wish to see the contractor,--that was very clear,--and yet he was unwilling to seem to run away, to avoid the man. Moreover, he realized vaguely since his talk with his cousin that there was a certain claim in complicity. There was trouble ahead for them both, surely, and Graves had his right to be considered.