During the first day at the fair Babcock managed to preserve this nice distinction. On the second, he lost account of his conduct, and by the late afternoon was sauntering with his friend among the booths in the company of two suspicions looking women. With these same women the pair of revellers drove off in top buggies just before dusk, and vanished in the direction of the open country. CHAPTER VII. Babcock returned to his home twenty-four hours later like a whipped cur. He was disgusted with himself. It seemed to him incredible that he should have fallen so low. He had sinned against his wife and his own self-respect without excuse; for it was no excuse that he had let himself be led to drink too much. His heart ached and his cheek burned at the recollection of his two days of debauchery. What was to be done? If only he were able to cut this ugly sore in his soul out with a knife and have done with it forever! But that was impossible. It stared him in the face, a haunting reality. In his distress he asked himself whether he would not go to Mr. Glynn and make a clean breast of it; but his practical instincts answered him that he would none the less have made a beast of himself. He held his head between his hands, and stared dejectedly at his desk. Some relief came to him at last only from the reflection that it was a single fault, and that it need never--it should never be repeated. Selma need not know, and he would henceforth avoid all such temptations. Terrible as it was, it was a slip, not a deliberate fault, and his love for his wife was not in question.