"Never ask me that again, Atkins," he said, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Never speak to me about this again."

Atkins retreated quickly from the room; there was something in the
manner of the Rev. Francis Heath that he did not like, and he registered
a mental vow to let the subject drop, so far as he, a lieutenant in His
Majesty's Royal Engineers, was concerned, and never to allude to it,
either for "fear or favour," again.




IV

INTRODUCES THE READER TO MRS. WILDER IN A SECRETIVE MOOD


Draycott Wilder was a man who hoarded his passions and concentrated them
upon a very few objects. His work came first, and his intense ambition,
and after his work, his wife. She was the right sort of wife for a man
who put worldly success first, and through the years of their marriage
had helped him a great deal more than he ever admitted. Clarice Wilder
was beautiful, and had a surface cleverness combined with a natural gift
of tact that made her an admirable hostess. She could talk to anybody
and send them away pleased and satisfied with themselves, and she had
made the best of Draycott for a good number of years. She had married
him when marriage seemed a big thing and a wonderful thing, and her
country home in Devonshire a small, breathless place where nothing ever
happened, and where life was one long Sunday at Home, and Draycott, back
from the East, had appeared as interesting as a white Othello.