"I have no doubt it is much the best thing for the children to remain
with their mother," she said, rising.

"Much the best," agreed Mr. Barrett. "Whatever she is like," continued
the old lady. "Are you ready, Louisa?"

Mr. Barrett followed them to the door, and then, returning to the room,
watched, with glad eyes, their progress up the street.

"Wonder whether she'll keep it to herself?" he muttered.

His doubts were set at rest next day. All Ramsbury knew by then of his
matrimonial complications, and seemed anxious to talk about them;
complications which tended to increase until Mr. Barrett wrote out a list
of his children's names and ages and learnt it off by heart.

Relieved of the attentions of the Prentice family, he walked the streets
a free man; and it was counted to him for righteousness that he never
said a hard word about his wife. She had her faults, he said, but they
were many thousand miles away, and he preferred to forget them. And he
added, with some truth, that he owed her a good deal.

For a few months he had no reason to alter his opinion. Thanks to his
presence of mind, the Prentice family had no terrors for him. Heart-
whole and fancy free, he led the easy life of a man of leisure, a
condition of things suddenly upset by the arrival of Miss Grace Lindsay
to take up a post at the elementary school. Mr. Barrett succumbed almost
at once, and, after a few encounters in the street and meetings at mutual
friends', went to unbosom him-self to Mr. Jernshaw.