On the morning following his conversation with Damaris Wainwright, however, he was decidedly out of sorts, and proved but ill company for his wife at the breakfast table. She ventured some simple remark in relation to a plan which Mr. Candish had for the re-decoration of the Church of the Nativity, and her husband retorted with an open sneer. "Oh, don't talk about Mr. Candish to me," he said. "He is that obsolete thing, a clergyman." "I supposed," Edith responded good-naturedly, "that a question of artistic decoration would interest you, even if it was connected with a church." "I hate anything connected with a religion," Fenton observed savagely. "A religion is simply an artificial scheme of life, to be followed at the expense of all harmony with nature." It was evident to Edith that her husband was nervous and irritable, and with wifely protective instinct she attributed his condition to overwork. She did not take up the challenge which he in a manner flung down. She seldom argued with him now; she cast about in her mind for a safe topic of conversation, and, by ill-luck, hit upon the one least calculated to restore Arthur to good humor and a sane temper. "Helen was in last evening," she said. "She is troubled about Ninitta; but I think it is because she isn't used to her ways." Fenton started guiltily. "What about Ninitta?" he demanded. "Helen says she acts strangely, as if she had something on her mind; and that she complains bitterly that her husband doesn't care for her." Arthur shrugged his shoulders. He was on his guard now, and perfectly self-possessed. "No?" he said, inquiringly. "Why should he?" "Why should he?" echoed his wife indignantly. Then she recovered herself, and let the question pass, saying simply: "That would lead us into one of our old discussions about right and wrong." "Those struggles and quibbles between right and wrong," Fenton retorted contemptuously, "have ceased to amuse me. They were interesting when I was young enough for them to have novelty, but now I find grand passions and a strong will more entertaining than that form of amusement." Edith raised her clear eyes to his with a calmness which she had learned by years of patient struggle. "And yet," she answered, "the people whom I have found most true, most helpful, and even most comfortable, have been those who believed these questions of right and wrong the most vital things in the universe." "Oh, certainly," was the reply. "A superstition is an admirable thing in its place." He rose from the table as he spoke, and stood an instant with his hand upon the back of his chair, looking at her in apparent indecision. She saw that he was troubled, and she longed to help him, but she had learned that his will was definite and unmanageable, and she secretly feared that her inquiry would be fruitless when she asked,-- "What is it that troubles you this morning, Arthur? Has anything gone wrong?"