Scarcely less startled was Ellis at the sudden apparition of Mrs.
Wilkinson than her husband had been. He remained only a few moments
after they retired. Then he turned his steps again homeward, with a
clearer head and heavier heart than when he refused to enter, in
fear of what he called a "curtain lecture."

Many painful thoughts flitted through his mind as he moved along
with a quick pace.

"I wish Cara understood me better, or that I had more patience with
her," he said to himself. "This getting angry with her, and going
off to drinking parties and taverns is a bad remedy for the evil, I
will confess. It is wrong in me, I know. Very wrong. But I can't
bear to be snapped, and snubbed up, and lectured in season and out
of season. I'm only flesh and blood. Oh dear! I'm afraid evil will
come of it in the end. Poor Wilkinson! What a shock the appearance
of his wife must have given him! It set every nerve in my body to
quivering. And it was all my fault that he wasn't at home with his
watching wife and sick child. Ah me! How one wrong follows another!"

Ellis had reached his own door. Taking out his night-key, he applied
it to the latch; but the door did not open. It had been locked.

"Locked out, ha!" he ejaculated quickly; and with a feeling of
anger. His hand was instantly on the bell-pull, and he jerked it
three or four times vigorously; the loud and continued ringing of
the bell sounding in his ears where he stood on the doorstep
without. A little while he waited, and then the ringing was renewed,
and with a more prolonged violence than at first. Then he listened,