Barker and to ask her advice about answering it. If it had been
really a serious matter, he would have told her at once; but being
the thing it was, he did not know just how to approach it, after his
first concealment. He knew that, to begin with, he would have to
account for his mistake in attempting to keep it from her, and would
have to bear some just upbraiding for this unmanly course, and would
then be miserably led to the distasteful contemplation of the folly
by which he had brought this trouble upon himself. Sewell smiled to
think how much easier it was to make one's peace with one's God than
with one's wife; and before he had brought himself to the point of
answering Barker's letter, there came a busy season in which he
forgot him altogether.




II.


One day in the midst of this Sewell was called from his study to see
some one who was waiting for him in the reception-room, but who sent
in no name by the housemaid.

"I don't know as you remember me," the visitor said, rising
awkwardly, as Sewell came forward with a smile of inquiry. "My
name's Barker."

"Barker?" said the minister, with a cold thrill of instant
recognition, but playing with a factitious uncertainty till he could
catch his breath in the presence of the calamity. "Oh yes! How do