“Yes. Isn’t it distressing?” was the response. “Oh course, I won’t mention it to anybody but you. I supposed you knew all about it since you’re her most intimate friend.” Mrs. Cromwell made an effort to speak coherently. “Let me try to understand you,” she said. “You say that Lydia Dodge came to you this afternoon——” “It was really evening,” the voice interrupted, in correction. “Almost seven. And their engagement was in town at half past. That’s why he kept calling her up so excitedly.” “And she told you,” Mrs. Cromwell continued, “Lydia Dodge told you that her husband, John Dodge, was philandering with——” “There was no doubt about it whatever,” the voice interrupted. “Some friends of hers had seen an actual caress exchanged between Mr. Dodge and the other woman.” “_What!_” “Yes. That’s what she told me.” “Wait!” Mrs. Cromwell begged. “Lydia Dodge told you that John Dodge——” “Yes,” the voice of Amelia Battle replied colourlessly in the telephone. “It seems too tragic, and it was such a shock to me—I never dreamed that people of forty or fifty had troubles like that—but it was what she came here to tell me. Of course, she didn’t have time to tell me much, because she was so upset and Mr. Dodge was in such a hurry for her to come home. I never dreamed there was anything but peace and happiness between them, did you?” “No, I didn’t,” gasped Mrs. Cromwell. “But Amelia——” “That’s all I know about it, I’m afraid.” “Amelia——” “Probably she’ll talk about it to you pretty soon,” Amelia said, at the other end of the wire. “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you before she did me; you really know her so much better than I do. I’m afraid I’ll have to go now. One of Mr. Battle’s assistants has just come in and I’m doing some work with him. It was lovely of you to call me up about the little essay, but, of course, that was _all_ Mr. Battle. Good-night.” Mrs. Cromwell sat staring at the empty mechanism in her hand until it rattled irritably, warning her to replace it upon its prong. IV A GREAT MAN’S WIFE SHE had a restless night, for she repeatedly woke up with a start, her eyes opening widely in the darkness of her bedroom; and each time this happened she made the same muffled and incomplete exclamation: “Well, of all——!” Her condition was still as exclamatory as it was anxiously expectant when, just after her nine-o’clock breakfast the next morning, she went to her Georgian drawing-room window and beheld the sterling figure of Mrs. Dodge in the act of hurrying from the sidewalk to the Georgian doorway. Mrs. Cromwell ran to admit her; brought her quickly into the drawing room. “Lydia!” she cried. “What on earth _happened_?” For, even if telephones had never been invented, the early caller’s expression would have made it plain that there had been a happening.