"Calm yourself, my love," said her husband. "I know Bill Siddall thoroughly. I said what would help. I want to get rid of her as much as you do--and that's saying a great deal." Mrs. Presbury flamed with the wrath of those who are justly accused. "If Mildred left, I should go, too," cried she. "Go where?" inquired her husband. "To the poorhouse?" By persistent rubbing in Presbury had succeeded in making the truth about her poverty and dependence clear to his wife. She continued to frown and to look unutterable contempt, but he had silenced her. He noted this with a sort of satisfaction and went on: "If Bill Siddall takes her, you certainly won't go there. He wouldn't have you. He feels strongly on the subject of mothers-in-law." "Has he been married before?" asked Mrs. Presbury. "Twice," replied her husband. "His first wife died. He divorced the second for unfaithfulness." Mildred saw in this painstaking recital of all the disagreeable and repellent facts about Siddall an effort further to humiliate her by making it apparent how desperately off she was, how she could not refuse any offer, revolting though it might be to her pride and to her womanly instincts. Doubtless this was in part the explanation of Presbury's malicious candor. But an element in that candor was a prudent preparing of the girl's mind for worse than the reality. That he was in earnest in his profession of a desire to bring about the match showed when he proposed that they should take rooms at a hotel in New York, to give her a chance to dress properly for the dinner. True, he hastened to say that the expense must be met altogether out of the remnant of Mildred's share of her father's estate, but the idea would not have occurred to him had he not been really planning a marriage. Never had Mildred looked more beautiful or more attractive than when the three were ready to sally forth from the Manhattan Hotel on that Thanksgiving evening. At twenty-five, a soundly healthy and vigorous twenty-five, it is impossible for mind and nerves, however wrought upon, to make serious inroads upon surface charms. The hope of emancipation from her hideous slavery had been acting upon the girl like a powerful tonic. She had gained several pounds in the three intervening days; her face had filled out, color had come back in all its former beauty to her lips. Perhaps there was some slight aid from art in the extraordinary brilliancy of her eyes. Presbury inventoried her with a succession of grunts of satisfaction. "Yes, he'll want you," he said. "You'll strike him as just the show piece he needs. And he's too shrewd not to be aware that his choice is limited." "You can't frighten me," said Mildred, with a radiant, coquettish smile--for practice. "Nothing could frighten me." "I'm not trying," replied Presbury. "Nor will Siddall frighten you. A woman who's after a bill-payer can stomach anything." "Or a man," said Mildred.