"Stop," the hostess said with dignity. "We need not go over the ground. Mr. Fenton made us acquainted, I presume, because he agrees with me in seeing nothing wrong in my position, however unconventional it may be. You will see that if I had been ashamed of the fact I could easily have kept it from your knowledge." But Edith made her no answer. She was too much overwhelmed by the various emotions which the disclosure of the evening had aroused. Edith was, from Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by its jar the most ordinary affairs of life. Edith was pure, high minded, simple souled, and for the rest she was honest and earnest. Her creeds were vitalized by the warm fervor with which she clung to them, and what more could be demanded of her? She quitted the dining-room, and soon Helen heard the outer door close behind her. The night gathered, and the lonely woman left behind sat long in sad reverie, until the door was again opened to admit Dr. Ashton. XXVII. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE. Hamlet; i.--2. Dr. Ashton came in too full of his own interview with Arthur to notice particularly if his wife showed signs of agitation. "My dear," he said, throwing himself into a chair, "it is at once one of the latest and the wisest of my reflections that you had better consider a newly married man as an entire stranger and form his acquaintance quite from the foundation, wholly unbiased by any notion you had of him as a bachelor." "His wife," responded Helen quietly, "has been dining with me, so I understand something of the situation. But how did Arthur behave?" "Like any husband who does not care to quarrel with his wife even when he disapproves of her. It is upon that principle that matrimonial felicity depends. Do you say Mrs. Fenton has been here?" "Yes; she came to me for sympathy and I administered it by telling her that I am your wife." "The devil! I beg your pardon; but, Helen, it was precisely because I knew she was sure to remember this Frontier scrape that I wanted her not to know. She will be very hard on you." "Christianity is always hard," returned she; "but what difference does it make; it was only a question of time. She is sweet and pure and good, Will, but her religion holds her in bands stronger than steel. I couldn't long keep step with one in chains. It might as well come now as any time." Her husband looked at her with evident interest not unmixed with admiration.