The Mayor's Wife

anything might be expected. Ready at eight, I hastened down to the second floor to find the lady, concerning whom I had had these doubts, awaiting me on the threshold of her

s go down together. I slept wretchedly and do no

hort time in which to rest, and would take what sleep he could get

onsiderable depths-then with a proud and

ot of the stairs. Mrs. Packard, hearing it, too, drew herself up still more firmly and was p

. His Honor could not spare Mr. Steel

passed on. In another instant we were receiving the greetings and apologies of the gentlemen. If

urtesy as we all sat down at the table; and, without waiting for an answer, she proceeded to pour the coffee

g any acquaintance with her ordinary bearing under conditions purely social, I was thrown out of my calculations by the cold ease with which she presided at her end of the tab

ments of tragedy in it which made the least movement on the part of those engaged in it of real moment to me. I was about to leave the table unenlightened, however, when Mrs. Packard rose and, drawing a letter from under the

with her first show of embarrassment during

it, though her husband's was much the nearer. As Mr. Steele received it he gave it the casual glance natural

made some mist

ingathering of her breath, she seemed to wake out of some dream and, looking down at the envelope she held

d gaze with one equally expressive, she carelessly

ct which bespeaks the stranger, he waited while she haste

I must have caught up a scrawl of the

ble episode by handing it now to her husband, who, with

forth between her and the secretary, I saw, or thought I saw, a lik

ion of it when I went into his study at nine o'clock. And it was so much o

ssed me, and while he urged precaution and a continued watch upon his wife, he expressed th

utes later we met her in the hall hurrying toward us with a newspaper in her hand and a ghastly look on her fac

Outrageous!" he exclaimed. Then tenderly, "My poor darling! that

g with me. You believe that; you are sure of that," she c

from the proverbial skeleton. Mrs. Packard's health is not wha

m about her, he kissed her fondly and p

ll you should be-a tru

t to his breast; then she caught his look, which was tender but

do others see, that I should be the subject of dou

n to his arm, he observed gravely: "Two weeks ago you were the life of this house, and of every other house into which your

en, and utterly ridiculous; but I can explain myself no other way. I have had a frightful experience-here-in my own house-on the spot where I have been so happy, so