had no things, I asked him if he hadn't everything of mine. I had
abstained from ordering dinner, and it was too late for

preliminaries at a club; so we were reduced to tea and fried fish
at my rooms--reduced also to the transcendent. Something had come

up which made me want him to feel at peace with me--and which,
precisely, was all the dear man himself wanted on any occasion. I

had too often had to press upon him considerations irrelevant, but
it gives me pleasure now to think that on that particular evening I

didn't even mention Mrs. Saltram and the children. Late into the
night we smoked and talked; old shames and old rigours fell away

from us; I only let him see that I was conscious of what I owed
him. He was as mild as contrition and as copious as faith; he was

never so fine as on a shy return, and even better at forgiving than
at being forgiven. I dare say it was a smaller matter than that

famous night at Wimbledon, the night of the problematical sobriety
and of Miss Anvoy's initiation; but I was as much in it on this

occasion as I had been out of it then. At about 1.30 he was
sublime.

He never, in whatever situation, rose till all other risings were
over, and his breakfasts, at Wimbledon, had always been the

principal reason mentioned by departing cooks. The coast was
therefore clear for me to receive her when, early the next morning,

to my surprise, it was announced to me his wife had called. I
hesitated, after she had come up, about telling her Saltram was in

the house, but she herself settled the question, kept me reticent
by drawing forth a sealed letter which, looking at me very hard in

the eyes, she placed, with a pregnantabsence of comment, in my
hand. For a single moment there glimmered before me the fond hope

that Mrs. Saltram had tendered me, as it were, her resignation and
desired to embody the act in an unsparing form. To bring this

about I would have feigned any humiliation; but after my eyes had
caught the superscription I heard myself say with a flatness that

betrayed a sense of something very different from relief: "Oh the
Pudneys!" I knew their envelopes though they didn't know mine.

They always used the kind sold at post-offices with the stamp
affixed, and as this letter hadn't been posted they had wasted a

penny on me. I had seen their horrid missives to the Mulvilles,
but hadn't been in direct correspondence with them.

"They enclosed it to me, to be delivered. They doubtless explain
to you that they hadn't your address."

I turned the thing over without opening it. "Why in the world
should they write to me?"

"Because they've something to tell you. The worst," Mrs. Saltram
dryly added.

It was another chapter, I felt, of the history of their lamentable
quarrel with her husband, the episode in which, vindictively,

disingenuously as they themselves had behaved, one had to admit
that he had put himself more grossly in the wrong than at any

moment of his life. He had begun by insulting the matchless
Mulvilles for these more specious protectors, and then, according

to his wont at the end of a few months, had dug a still deeper
ditch for his aberration than the chasm left yawning behind. The

chasm at Wimbledon was now blessedly closed; but the Pudneys,
across their persistent gulf, kept up the nastiest fire. I never

doubted they had a strong case, and I had been from the first for
not defending him--reasoning that if they weren't contradicted

they'd perhaps subside. This was above all what I wanted, and I so
far prevailed that I did arrest the correspondence in time to save

our little circle an infliction heavier than it perhaps would have
borne. I knew, that is I divined, that their allegations had gone

as yet only as far as their courage, conscious as they were in
their own virtue of an exposed place in which Saltram could have

planted a blow. It was a question with them whether a man who had
himself so much to cover up would dare his blow; so that these

vessels of rancour were in a manner afraid of each other. I judged
that on the day the Pudneys should cease for some reason or other

to be afraid they would treat us to some revelation more
disconcerting than any of its predecessors. As I held Mrs.

Saltram's letter in my hand it was distinctly communicated to me
that the day had come--they had ceased to be afraid. "I don't want

to know the worst," I presently declared.
"You'll have to open the letter. It also contains an enclosure."

I felt it--it was fat and uncanny. "Wheels within wheels!" I
exclaimed. "There's something for me too to deliver."

"So they tell me--to Miss Anvoy."
I stared; I felt a certain thrill. "Why don't they send it to her

directly?"
Mrs. Saltram hung fire. "Because she's staying with Mr. and Mrs.

Mulville."
"And why should that prevent?"

Again my visitor faltered, and I began to reflect on the grotesque,
the unconscious perversity of her action. I was the only person

save George Gravener and the Mulvilles who was aware of Sir Gregory
Coxon's and of Miss Anvoy's strange bounty. Where could there have

been a more signal illustration of the clumsiness of human affairs
than her having complacently selected this moment to fly in the

face of it? "There's the chance of their seeing her letters. They
know Mr. Pudney's hand."

Still I didn't understand; then it flashed upon me. "You mean they
might intercept it? How can you imply anything so base?" I

indignantly demanded
"It's not I--it's Mr. Pudney!" cried Mrs. Saltram with a flush.

"It's his own idea."
"Then why couldn't he send the letter to you to be delivered?"

Mrs. Saltram's embarrassment increased; she gave me another hard
look. "You must make that out for yourself."

I made it out quickly enough. "It's a denunciation?"
"A real lady doesn't betray her husband!" this virtuous woman

exclaimed.
I burst out laughing, and I fear my laugh may have had an effect of

impertinence. "Especially to Miss Anvoy, who's so easily shocked?
Why do such things concern HER?" I asked, much at a loss.

"Because she's there, exposed to all his craft. Mr. and Mrs.
Pudney have been watching this: they feel she may be taken in."

"Thank you for all the rest of us! What difference can it make
when she has lost her power to contribute?"

Again Mrs. Saltram considered; then very nobly: "There are other
things in the world than money." This hadn't occurred to her so

long as the young lady had any; but she now added, with a glance at
my letter, that Mr. and Mrs. Pudney doubtless explained their

motives. "It's all in kindness," she continued as she got up.
"Kindness to Miss Anvoy? You took, on the whole, another view of

kindness before her reverses."
My companion smiled with some acidity "Perhaps you're no safer than

the Mulvilles!"
I didn't want her to think that, nor that she should report to the

Pudneys that they had not been happy in their agent; and I well
remember that this was the moment at which I began, with

considerable emotion, to promise myself to enjoin upon Miss Anvoy
never to open any letter that should come to her in one of those

penny envelopes. My emotion, and I fear I must add my confusion,
quickly deepened; I presently should have been as glad to frighten

Mrs. Saltram as to think I might by some diplomacyrestore the
Pudneys to a quieter vigilance.

"It's best you should take my view of my safety," I at any rate
soon responded. When I saw she didn't know what I meant by this I