“Worse and worse! Heavens! a nurse of the scum of a city! And you dared to marry such a creature!” she gasped, fairly livid with rage now. “We are disgraced forever!” “Nonsense, mother,” Dr. Winthrop severely returned, his own face white to the lips. Had she been any other than his mother he would not have submitted to the insult. “Such pride of family and position is unworthy of any one. You very well know that the Rev. Dr. Eckhart’s beautiful and accomplished daughter went into one of our hospitals to study medicine and to be trained as a nurse, that she might be more useful in the work which she had chosen, and no one had anything to say of her but the highest praise.” “Yes; but she was going to India as the wife of a missionary; besides, Miss Eckhart’s position was unassailable—she was a lady,” retorted madam. “And my wife is also a lady,” Dr. Winthrop said, deeply displeased. “Have you not seen it? Did she not conduct herself as such this evening?” “She received us very courteously,” madam reluctantly conceded. Her companion flushed hotly. “Could you find any fault with either her appearance, her manner, or her language? Did you discover a single point which you could criticise?” he demanded, determined to make her acknowledge Salome’s virtues. “No, perhaps not, but——” “There can be no perhaps about the question,” he interposed. “She is beautiful, cultivated, refined, a lady in every sense of the word, and she has the deepest love and devotion of my heart—which you well know is saying a great deal, as I have never been accounted a susceptible young man where ladies were concerned. But listen, and you shall learn how I came to love her so, and if even your proud heart is not softened and drawn toward her, without regard to her previous history or position, you are more callous than I shall like to believe.” Before he could go on, the door behind him opened, and Evelyn Winthrop entered the room. “Forgive me for intruding, True,” she said, “but I heard voices, and I knew you must be telling mamma the story of your romantic marriage. I am dying to know all about it, too, so I stole down. I did not think you would mind.” “No,” Dr. Winthrop replied, his lip curling slightly, “it may as well be told once for all, and the sooner it is over, and your attitude toward my wife determined, the better it will suit me. But,” with a stern, resolute look, “let me tell you this—whatever stand you take with reference to her, you will include me in it; if you receive her cordially as a daughter and sister, well and good; if you repudiate her—I shall repudiate you!” CHAPTER IX. MADAME WINTHROP REFUSES TO RECEIVE SALOME AS A DAUGHTER. “I am sure, Truman, you need not get so excited,” Madame Winthrop remarked, in a more subdued tone than she had hitherto used, and flushing vividly; “no one wishes to repudiate your wife, as you express it, if she is all that she should be.”