“Say,” she said, “I never thought about it being that.”

Dwight laughed.  “What did you think it was?  And whose disgrace is it, pray?”

“Ninian’s,” said Lulu.

“Ninian’s!  Well, he’s gone.  But you’re here.  And I’m here.  Folks’ll feel sorry for you.  But the disgrace—­that’d reflect on me.  See?”

“But if we don’t tell, what’ll they think then?”

Said Dwight:  “They’ll think what they always think when a wife leaves her husband.  They’ll think you couldn’t get along.  That’s all.”

“I should hate that,” said Lulu.

“Well, I should hate the other, let me tell you.”

“Dwight, Dwight,” said Ina.  “Let’s go in the house.  I’m afraid they’ll hear—­”

As they rose, Mrs. Bett plucked at her returned daughter’s sleeve.

“Lulie,” she said, “was his other wife—­was she there?”

“No, no, mother.  She wasn’t there.”

Mrs. Bett’s lips moved, repeating the words.  “Then that ain’t so bad,” she said.  “I was afraid maybe she turned you out.”

“No,” Lulu said, “it wasn’t that bad, mother.”

Mrs. Bett brightened.  In little matters, she quarrelled and resented, but the large issues left her blank.

Through some indeterminate sense of the importance due this crisis, the Deacons entered their parlour.  Dwight lighted that high, central burner and faced about, saying: 

“In fact, I simply will not have it, Lulu!  You expect, I take it, to make your home with us in the future, on the old terms.”

“Well—­”

“I mean, did Ninian give you any money?”

“No.  He didn’t give me any money—­only enough to get home on.  And I kept my suit—­why!” she flung her head back, “I wouldn’t have taken any money!”

“That means,” said Dwight, “that you will have to continue to live here—­on the old terms, and of course I’m quite willing that you should.  Let me tell you, however, that this is on condition—­on condition that this disgraceful business is kept to ourselves.”

She made no attempt to combat him now.  She looked back at him, quivering, and in a great surprise, but she said nothing.

“Truly, Lulu,” said Ina, “wouldn’t that be best?  They’ll talk anyway.  But this way they’ll only talk about you, and the other way it’d be about all of us.”

Lulu said only:  “But the other way would be the truth.”

Dwight’s eyes narrowed:  “My dear Lulu,” he said, “are you sure of that?”

“Sure?”

“Yes.  Did he give you any proofs?”

“Proofs?”

“Letters—­documents of any sort?  Any sort of assurance that he was speaking the truth?”

“Why, no,” said Lulu.  “Proofs—­no.  He told me.”

“He told you!”

“Why, that was hard enough to have to do.  It was terrible for him to have to do.  What proofs—­” She stopped, puzzled.

“Didn’t it occur to you,” said Dwight, “that he might have told you that because he didn’t want to have to go on with it?”