thought of the matter differently, as she would have said,
selfishly. He was not permitted to come again; but he went away
lightened, inasmuch as he had added his burden to hers.

When a year later the national credit involved that of Prendergast's
firm, Madeline read financial articles in the newspapers with heavy
concern, surprising her family with views on 'sound money'; and
when, shortly afterward, his partners brought that unhappy young man
before the criminal courts for an irregular use of the firm's
signature, which further involved it beyond hope of extrication,
there was no moment of the day which did not find her, in spirit,
beside him there.

The case dragged on through appeal, and the decision of the lower
courts was not reversed. The day this became known the fact also
transpired that poor Prendergast would never live to complete his
ten years' term of imprisonment. He went to prison with hardly more
than one lung, and in the most favourable physical condition to get
rid of the other. Mrs. Prendergast wept a little over the
installation, and assured Frederick that it was perfectly absurd;
they were certain to get him out again; people always got people out
again in America. She took him grapes and flowers once a week for
about a month, and then she sailed for Europe. She put it about
that her stay was to be as brief as was consistent with the
transaction of certain necessary business in London; but she never
came back, and Madeline Anderson had taken her place, in so far as
the grapes and flowers were concerned, for many months, when the
announcement of his wife's death reached Prendergast in an English
paper published in Paris. About a year after that it began to be
thought singular how he picked up in health, and Madeline's mother