And this is because he has become violently smitten with a young woman whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long intervals, whom he first met in a railway train, and whose name and residence he don't even know." There was an ominous silence--so hushed that the ticking of the allegorical clock came like a grim monitor.

"Then," said Mrs.Blandford, in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized, "he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful confidence." "Good heavens! Joan, no--you don't understand.

At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in love with her.

Yes; it is a fact, Joan.

I know Dick Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he." "Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in the street--expects me to advise him--to--to--" She stopped.