One day when he first began to sit up, and before he had been out at all, she came and sat with him in his sunshiny parlor. There had been a silence for a moment as she looked around upon the few pictures and upon that bareness and coldness which, do what he will, no man can eradicate from his abiding-place until he calls in the deft and dainty hand of woman. "I shall be so glad when you have a wife, Mr. Hayne!" was her quiet comment. "So shall I, Mrs. Waldron," was the response. "And isn't it high time we were beginning to hear of a choice? Forgive my intrusiveness, but that was the very matter of which the major and I were talking as he brought me over." "There is something to be done first, Mrs. Waldron," he answered. "I cannot offer any woman a clouded name. It is not enough that people should begin to believe that I was innocent and my persecutors utterly in error, if not perjured. I must be able to show who was the real culprit, and that is not easy. The doctor and I thought we saw a way not long ago; but it proved delusive." And he sighed deeply. "I had expected to see the major about it the very day he got back from the court; but we have had no chance to talk." "Mr. Hayne," she said, impulsively, "a woman's intuition is not always at fault. Tell me if you believe that any one on the post has any inkling of the truth. I have a reason for asking." "I _did_ think it possible, Mrs. Waldron. I cannot be certain now; and it's too late, anyway." "How, too late? What's too late?" He paused a moment, a deeper shadow than usual on his face; then he lifted his head and looked fairly at her: "I should not have said that, Mrs. Waldron. It can never be too late. But what I mean is that--just now I spoke of offering no woman a clouded name. Even if it were unclouded, I could not offer it where I would." "Because you have heard of the engagement?" was the quick, eager question. There was no instant of doubt in the woman as to where the offering would be made, if it only could. "I knew of the engagement only a day ago," he answered, with stern effort at self-control. "Blake was speaking of her, and it came out all of a sudden." He turned his head away again. It was more than Mrs. Waldron could stand. She leaned impetuously towards him, and put her hand on his: "Mr. Hayne, that is no engagement of heart to heart. It is entirely a thing of Mrs. Rayner's doing; and I _know_ it. She is poor,--dependent,--and has been simply sold into bondage." "And you think she cares nothing for the position, the wealth and social advantages, this would give her? Ah, Mrs. Waldron, consider." "I _have_ considered. Mr. Hayne, if I were a man, like you, that child should never go back to him. And they are going next week. You _must_ get well."