"Damn Mrs. Hathaway," said Tyson.

"Poor lady, isn't she sufficiently damned already?"

The twinkle came back into Tyson's eyes, but there was gloom in the rest
of his face. The twinkle was lost upon Stanistreet. He knew too much; and
the awkward thing was that Tyson never could tell exactly how much he
knew. So he wisely dropped the subject.

Stanistreet certainly knew a great deal; but he was the last man in the
world to make a pedantic display of his knowledge; and Mr. Wilcox's
prejudices remained the only obstacle to Tyson's marriage. It was one
iron will against another, and the battle was long. Mr. Wilcox had the
advantage of position. He simply retreated into his library as into a
fortified camp, intrenching himself behind a barricade of books, and
refusing to skirmish with the enemy in the open. And to every assault
made by his family he replied with a violent fit of coughing. A
well-authenticated lung-disease is a formidable weapon in domestic
warfare.

At last he yielded. Not to time, nor yet to Tyson, nor yet to his wife's
logic, but to the importunities of his lung-disease. Other causes may
have contributed; he was a man of obstinate affections, and he had loved
his daughter.

It was considered right that the faults of the dead (his unreasonable
obstinacy, for instance) should be forgiven and forgotten. Death seemed
to have made Mrs. Wilcox suddenly familiar with her incomprehensible
husband. She was convinced that whatever he had thought of it on earth,
in heaven, purged from all mortal weakness, Mr. Wilcox was taking a very