"Haven't I proved my discretion?" Helen said lightly. "I thought that by this time you'd be willing to trust me with your most deadly secrets." "This is a deadly secret, indeed," he returned, taking from his pocket a small morocco case. "Oh, jewelry," Helen said, with an accent of disappointment. "I should never have suspected you of such commonplaceness, Will." "Not jewelry; a jewel," retorted Dr. Ashton, opening the case and displaying a tiny vial. "Will!" Helen exclaimed, stopping suddenly and catching her husband by the arm, "you won't give him that?" "Why not? I promised him long ago that I'd get it for him, and he particularly asked for it as a wedding gift." "Oh, Will; don't do it! He'll use it sometime when he's blue; he'll----" "Nonsense," responded the physician, restoring the case to his pocket. "I've diagnosed his case perfectly. He isn't very robust, he's infernally sensitive, and he's no end morbid. He fancies he may want to kill himself, and I dare say he will have leanings that way. Most of us do. He has wanted to a good many times before now, and he is likely to again, but he won't do it. He's too soft-hearted. He might get up steam enough as far as courage goes, but he'd never forget other people and their opinion. He couldn't bear to hurt others, and still less could he bear the idea of their blaming him. He is precisely the man who cannot take his own life." "But what puts it into his head just now? Why should he marry if he dreads it so?" "It is all of a piece with his morbidness. He is really in love with Miss Caldwell, I think, but he has brooded over the matter as he broods over every thing, and seeing the uncertain nature of matrimony, he like a wise man provides for contingencies. There may be something behind that I don't know of, but I think not. He'll feel easier if he has this, and I am honestly doing him a favor, if it isn't in the way he thinks." "I do not know," persisted Helen, "but I do wish you wouldn't do it. How would his bride feel if she knew?" "I don't know her," Dr. Ashton returned coolly, "so of course I can't tell how sensible she is; but in any case I can trust Arthur's discretion." "She's orthodox," said Helen, "or, no, I think she is not so bad as that; but she would regard the idea of suicide as unspeakably wicked. At least I think so; I never saw her but once. Oh, I do hate to have Arthur marry her. It's dreadful!" "Of course; it's dreadful to think of any man's marrying, for that matter," he returned with a smile, "but he is a man who was sure to do it sooner or later." "He's a man of so much principle," Helen mused, half aloud. "Principle," sneered her companion laughingly, "principle is only formulated policy."