“You poor child!” I exclaimed.

“When Douglas found that I was reading these books he threatened to burn them.  I told him ’There are more copies in the store, and I am determined to be educated on this subject.’”

She paused.  “How much like my own experience!” I thought.

“There were chapters on the subject of wives, how much they were not told, and why this was.  So very quickly I began to see around my own experience.  Douglas must have figured out that this would be so, for the end of the matter was an admission.”

“You don’t mean he confessed to you!”

She smiled bitterly.  “No,” she said.  “He brought Dr. Perrin to London to do it for him.  Dr. Perrin said he had concluded I had best know that my husband had had some symptoms of the disease.  He, the doctor, wished to tell me who was to blame for the attempt to deceive me.  Douglas had been willing to admit the truth, but all the doctors had forbidden it.  I must realise the fearful problem they had, and not blame them, and, above all I must not blame my husband, who had been in their hands in the matter.”

“How stupid men are!  As if that would excuse him!”

“I’m afraid I showed the little man how poor an impression he had made—­both for himself and for his patron.  But I had suffered all there was to suffer, and I was tired of pretending.  I told him it would have been far better for them if they had told me the truth at the beginning.”

“Ah, yes!” I said.  “That is what I tried to make them see; but all I got for it was a sentence of deportation!”

11.  When Sylvia’s train arrived at the station of her home town, the whole family was waiting upon the platform for her, and a good part of the town besides.  The news that she had arrived in New York, and was coming home on account of her father’s illness, had, of course, been reproduced in all the local papers, with the result that the worthy major had been deluged with telegrams and letters concerning his health.  Notwithstanding, he had insisted upon coming to the train to meet his daughter.  He was not going to be shut up in a sickroom to please all the gossips of two hemispheres.  In his best black broad-cloth, his broad, black hat newly brushed, and his old-fashioned, square-toed shoes newly shined, he paced up and down the station platform for half an hour, and it was to his arms that Sylvia flew when she alighted from the train.

There was “Miss Margaret,” who had squeezed her large person and fluttering draperies out of the family automobile, and was waiting to shed tears over her favourite daughter; there was Celeste, radiant with a wonderful piece of news which she alone was to impart to her sister; there were Peggy and Maria, shot up suddenly into two amazingly-gawky girls; there was Master Castleman Lysle, the only son of the house, with his black-eyed and bad-tempered French governess.  And finally there was Aunt Varina, palpitating with various agitations, not daring to whisper to anyone else the fears which this sudden home-coming inspired in her.  Bishop Chilton and his wife were away, but a delegation of cousins had come; also Uncle Mandeville Castleman had sent a huge bunch of roses, which were in the family automobile, and Uncle Barry Chilton had sent a pair of wild turkeys, which were soon to be in the family.