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160 through no fault of mine. If you left your husband, I might as well close my establishment. All London would talk, and I—I pride myself upon furnishing no food for idle and detrimental gossip."

She rose from her seat and walked up and down the room, thoroughly and selfishly roused.

"Why will you not take my advice?" she asked. "Go home and stay there quietly for a few months. Then I will tell you what to do."

"I will not!" I exclaimed passionately.

My mother reflected. She saw that I was determined. I was. As I sat in that room I resolved that if I could not discover the cause of my husband's coldness—and discovering, vanquish it—I would leave my married life forever.

"If you will not," said my mother, after a good two minutes of complete silence, and in a wisely calculating tone, "something must be done. Of course, Elsie, there's a woman in the case."

A woman in the case! What woman? What did my mother mean?

"The expression is not a pretty one," resumed