see?"

Arthur said he saw it all, but he did not; he saw much that was not,
and much that was he saw not. He did not see that the dust of the old
street, and of the new town as well, was on Mrs. Morris's shoes; and
that Isabel, in a gown which she had left at the cottage when she went
to be mistress of his home, was really on the train, bound South.

Dropping all pretence of having any search to make, he hurried back to
his own room, and by and by told the pleasantly astonished Sarah and
Giles the simple truth as Mrs. Morris had put it into his mouth, but
told it in the firm belief that he was covering a hideous crime with an
all but transparent lie.

After a false show of breakfasting he went into his study,--"to work on
his sermon," he said; but did nothing there but pace the floor, hold his
head, and whisper, "It will not last an hour after _he_ has heard
it," and, "O God, have mercy! Oh, my wife, my wife! Oh, my brain, my
brain!"




XIX

A DOUBLE STILL HUNT


Mrs. Morris's task was too large for her. She had always taken such
care of her innocence that her cultivation of the virtues had been only