Mr. Burton Henderson accepted his wife's amendment with complacency. "I don't believe Weatheral appreciated the distinction. Men like that have a sort of money crust that prevents the ordinary perceptions from getting through to them." This illustration appeared on second thoughts so illuminating that it carried him a little further. "Perhaps that's the reason it has taken him so long to tumble after he has been hit; it has just got through to him. It would be interesting to know, though, if he is still a little in love with you." There was a fair amount of speculation in Mr. Burton Henderson's tone that did not appear to have its seat in any apprehension. "Just as if you rather hoped it," his wife protested. "Well, I was only wondering if his health is so bad as the papers say--it seldom is, you know--but if he were to go off all of a sudden one of these days, whether he mightn't take it into his head now to leave you a legacy." "I don't believe it was personal enough with Peter for that. It wasn't me he wanted so much as just to be married. And, besides, I did come down on him rather hard." Mrs. Burton Henderson smiled a little reminiscently as if she still saw herself in the process of coming down on Peter and thought rather well of it. "Well, anyway," her husband finished, "we could have managed with a legacy." "Yes, we do need money dreadfully, don't we, Bertie?" she sighed. "But I don't believe I had anything to do with it." That was all very well for Mrs. Burton Henderson, but Peter's sister Ellen had a different opinion. "Peter," she had said the evening after Peter had sent his trunk out of the house and locked up his suitcase to keep her from putting anything more into it, "you're not thinking of _her_, are you? You're not going to take that abroad with you." "No, Ellen, I haven't thought of her for a long time except to wish her happiness. You mustn't let that worry you." "Just the same," said Ellen, "if anything happens to you over there--if you never come back to me, I shall never forgive her." "I shall come back. I am sorry you should feel so bitter about it." He could not, especially now that it was gone, very well explain to Ellen about the House; for all the years that it had stood there just beyond the edge of dreams with the garden spread around it and a lovely wood before, she had never heard of it. There had been so many ways to it once, paths to it began in pictures, great towered gates of music gave upon its avenues, and if he had not spoken of it, it was because as he had made himself believe when she did come, that Eunice Goodward would come into it of first right. He could not have blamed her for not wishing to live in it--from the first he had never blamed her. He might have managed even had she pulled it about his ears to rebuild it in some fashion, but this was the bitterest, that he knew now for a certainty there had never been any House and the certainty made him ridiculous.