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GILBERT put out the lights and locked up the house before going upstairs. His wife was not in her room, so he seated himself and waited until he heard Edith’s door open and close, then he rose to his feet.

Husband and wife faced each other silently for a moment or two. Mrs. Gilbert was painfully agitated; her eyes were burning; her cheeks, underneath their theatrical makeup, were chalky; her voice, when she spoke, was thin and unnatural.

“Well, what is the meaning of this extraordinary behavior?” she inquired.

“Sit down,” Gilbert told her. “You must be exhausted after your—after what I saw, and I have a good deal to say to you.”

“ ‘Sit down’? You want me to be seated while you read me a lecture! At this time of night? After the outrageous thing you have done? . . . Do you realize that Edith is in a collapse? Do you realize that you have brutally insulted her and me—humiliated both of us and offended our guests? . . . Or do you understand? I’m wondering if you are in your right mind.”

“I am in possession of all my faculties. It is you who appear to have taken leave of yours. I know exactly what I have done —I have cleansed my house of vermin. I propose, now, to put it in order.”

The woman made a visible effort to control herself, but her hands fluttered, her movements were jerky as she crossed the floor and sank into a chair. “Whatever induced you—? . . . What is it you took exception to?”

Gilbert’s pale-blue eyes enlarged and he assumed an expression of amazement. “You ask me that? You sit there in that abominable masquerade and ask me—? Look at yourself. In Heaven’s name, are you blind physically as well as morally?”

“You really object to our costumes?” the wife inquired, incredulously.

“Most emphatically. To permit Edith to flaunt her nakedness in public, nay to encourage her in that shocking indelicacy, proves you to be wholly without sense of modesty. To outdo her indecency in your own person convicts you of—of complete degradation. I am stupefied!”

“Don’t you understand? It was a children’s party,” the woman moaned. “We were in character. It was all perfectly innocent.”

“ ‘Innocent’! I beheld evidence of that ‘innocence.’ An abandoned couple, embracing in the shadows of my porch! Locked in each other’s arms! Girls and boys smoking on my doorstep! Drinking, too, I’ve no doubt! And inside the house a bacchanal, a saturnalia of vulgarity and nakedness! These are the companions you select for our child: this is the manner in which you signalize her graduation from girlhood into maturity. And you a mother! For shame! Has the word no meaning for you?”

“Young people nowadays do things we never did, and think nothing about it. I couldn’t watch them all. But no man with any pride or—or any humanity, would humiliate his family as you humiliated us.”

“When I heard about this affair and was told that you had taken advantage of my absence—”

“Who told you?” the wife broke in, sharply.

“When I learned that you had selected a costume designed to advertise your person, your body—”

“Who told you? Miss Galloway?”

“—I suspected that—”

“Of course it was Miss Galloway.”

“Very well. She it was.”

“And you presume to accuse me of immodesty, indelicacy!” Mrs. Gilbert’s lip curled. “How far have you gone with that woman, Henry?”

“Silence!” the man shouted.

“Oh, I’m not jealous! And I don’t accuse you of actual impropriety. You’re too cautious for that. But aren’t you playing the hypocrite?”

“This is too disgusting.”

“Right! What could be more disgusting than the yearnings of lecherous middle age? You’re a timid old man and she’s an erotic old maid. I’ve watched you.”

Gilbert’s rage grew to enormous and terrifying proportions: he shook with a palsy; his face became apoplectic. He rose and with heavy tread marched up and down the room, waving his arms, barking incoherently; he clapped his palms over his ears to shut out his wife’s words, but he could still hear such phrases as “indecencies of thought,” “starved emotions,” “inhibitions of cowardice,” “flickering desires.” He flung himself into a chair finally and closed his eyes; his lips moved; his spirit strained. He prayed for self-control; begged forgiveness for this outrage against high Heaven. Slowly he regained mastery over himself. When he spoke it was in freezing tones:

“I shall ignore your unclean imputations. When you are calmer you will no doubt feel shame at your own vileness, but— please do not apologize. Spare yourself the ignominy and me the pain. We shall never again allude to the subject. It is closed.”

“All right. Please go, and let’s have this out in the morning!” Alice exclaimed, brokenly. “I’m on the verge of hysteria.”

“We have gone too far to stop here.”

“Please—!” his wife implored. “I’m too nervous. I’m not in very good condition.”

“When we had our last discussion you were not only unjust to me, but also you refused to acknowledge the truth of my contentions. I tried, in all kindness, to show you that Edith’s future is in jeopardy and to point out the inevitable consequences—”

“Are you still harping on that subject? Are you going to talk again about sending her away? Don’t try it, Henry! I warn you; don’t—try it!”

“This affair tonight should illuminate your blindness, unless you refuse to see.”

“So! That’s it! That’s why you created a scene—over nothing. I might have known you had a reason for mortifying me, disgracing me. You sneaked home just to—to prove your case! Well—don’t try it, that’s all.” The speaker fell back, rolled her head weakly. “For God’s sake, don’t torture me this way! I’ve been at the breaking point for weeks. Won’t you go?”

“Not until we have thrashed this out. Your fatigue is of less importance than that child’s salvation, and I propose here and now to assert my authority.”

“You mean you propose to drive me crazy, destroy me.” The speaker raised herself and stared wildly at her husband. “I believe you’d do that very thing.”

“Nothing of the sort, but—”

“Doesn’t a mother’s love mean anything to you?”

“It is sacred. I revere it. But how can you talk about true mother love when your short-sighted and thoroughly selfish attachment for Edith has all but ruined her? You showed tonight how incapable you are of caring for her moral welfare; it must be placed in other hands.”

“Not while I live!” The words were voiced fiercely.

“The animal is speaking. It is animal instinct to fight for its young, however unwisely. Listen to me quietly and spare yourself—I have no wish to harrow your feelings—but again I repeat my charge.”

“Words! Words! Bigotry! Lies!”

“A woman’s denial. But can you deny your part in tonight’s debauchery? Can you deny that you deliberately exposed your person for the purpose of arousing sinful desires in those young men and of teasing your own illicit passions? Those games! Those scuffles! An excuse to be pawed over by adolescent young scalawags.”

Mrs. Gilbert exclaimed in a choking voice, “Of course I deny it! But things haven’t the same meaning for us. Not even words. It is an insult to talk with you. Again I ask you to— leave me alone.”

“Will you consent to Edith’s going to her Aunt Ella’s?”

“Never!”

Gilbert sighed deeply; resolution, it seemed, came at a grievous cost. “I think you will consent when I’ve done talking.”

“You’re never done talking.”

“When I was in New York recently, it occurred to me to look up the records of that Mills divorce case—” Mrs. Gilbert gasped, sat up, but the speaker disregarded her movement. “It happened prior to our meeting, before we were married, and you told me your side of it. I assumed, of course, that you were truthful—”

“I was truthful. I told you—everything.”

“Lately, I regret to say, doubts of your complete frankness have assailed me and I have discovered that I was right. It seems that I was the victim of deceit.” Gilbert drew from his pocket a large envelope from which he extracted and deliberately unfolded a considerable sheaf of typewritten pages. His wife watched him, wide-eyed. “Read this,” he said, handing them to her.

“Read? How could I read anything—in this condition? What is it?”

“It is the report of a detective agency which I engaged to examine into that Mills matter. It contains, I regret to say, an altogether different version of your part in the case than you told me and that my youthful ardor induced me to—er—swallow. It involved a deal of effort and expense to get it, after all these years; the searching of court records and newspaper files, the locating and interviewing of such witnesses as are still alive and —”

“What does it say?”

“I can repeat the whole wretched story. Heaven knows it is engraved upon my mind! But you must know; your conscience must tell you the gist of it. Hm—m! It seems that you were not the innocent victim of a wife’s unreasoning jealousy, but the guilty paramour—”

“That’s a lie! I was cleared of that. Nothing was proven and Mrs. Mills admitted, later, that it was all a miserable mistake. I told you the truth, Henry. I swear it!”

“You made me think so, but here,” Gilbert tapped his sheaf of papers with a well-manicured index finger, “is the proof that you sinned, not alone against that woman, but against me, your future husband.”

“Proof? After all these years? Don’t be absurd! You can’t believe any such thing.”

“I must believe it.”

“Very well, believe it if you must. That doesn’t make it so. But, in God’s name, what is the use of going into it? What good can it do?”

“It has done this much good to go into it. You can’t again deny that your character is inherently—loose. You can’t maintain any longer that Edith is safe in your hands.”

“Why? I don’t follow you. Suppose it were true; characters change. But I tell you it’s a lie if it says—”

“Edith will have to judge that for herself.”

“Edith!” Mrs. Gilbert stared at her husband with suddenly affrighted eyes. “You’re not—going to tell—Edith?” The words ended in a whisper.

“You leave me no choice. I have wrestled long and earnestly with this problem. On my knees I have asked for light to see the way and for strength with which to follow it. For her own good she must know the truth. Then, I venture to hope, the scales will drop from her eyes and she will—”

The words were drowned in a cry from the woman. She rose unsteadily and clutched at her husband’s arm. “Henry! You can’t put any faith in that—that thing. Not after all these years. What could those people learn about a case forgotten twenty years ago? I’m—sorry if I offended you tonight. I didn’t mean to and—it won’t happen again. . . . We’ve been married too long to quarrel like this.”

It was the moment of victory; Gilbert seized it. “You convict yourself, Alice. You convince me that your professions of innocence were counterfeit.”

“No, no, no! You’ve worn me out, that’s all. I’m perfectly innocent, but—I’m ready to give up. I—surrender!” She tried blindly to push past him but he inquired:

“Where are you going?”

“I promised Edith— She’s beside herself; she can’t sleep.”

“You shall not see her again tonight.” Gilbert strode to the door and stood with his back against it. “You’re in no condition to harrow the child’s feelings and I don’t intend to permit any impetuous appeal to her sympathies.”

The woman had been tottering upon the verge of collapse; she broke down now and lost what feeble hold of herself she had maintained. Frantically, she cried: “I will. I must. You shan’t see her first—poison her mind with those lies. She wouldn’t believe them; she loves me. Let me out—”

She tried to thrust herself past him, tried to drag him away from the door, but what little strength she had ran out of her and at last she flung herself upon a couch. She began to weep, quietly, weakly, then her breath caught and her sobbing turned into broken laughter, into mirthless explosions of sound that racked her whole body.

“Calm yourself,” Gilbert directed, harshly. “Instead of yielding to this futile hysteria it would be far better if you sought solace from on high. Make your peace with God. He is merciful; He is the refuge of the sore at heart, the sick in mind and body.” With these words he removed the key from the lock and stepped out into the hall. He closed and locked the door behind him, then pocketed the key.

For a few moments he stood listening, until he convinced himself that his wife was doing her best to smother her sounds of distress and did not intend to make an outcry that would arouse the household, after which he went to his own room.

It had been a trying scene and it had exhausted him, but he was well content with its outcome. Henceforth, he felt sure, there would be no divided authority in this house; there would be no more opposition to his will, no more interference with his plans for Edith’s future. He had not the slightest intention of telling the girl what was in that detective agency’s report—he knew his daughter too well to risk anything like that—and, as a matter of fact, if Alice were not so completely upset she would realize that he could not do so without sacrificing for all time whatever regard the child had for him and thus defeating the very object he had in mind. But it would not do the mother any harm to endure a few hours of suspense; it might do her a lot of good.

He undressed deliberately and with a grateful sigh resigned himself to sleep. It was pleasant to be relieved at last of this burden which had caused him such concern and to realize that his conscience was at ease.

He did not sleep very long, however. It seemed to him that he had barely dozed off when a cautious tap-tapping disturbed him. Faintly he heard a voice calling. He dozed off again but the sounds were renewed more loudly; he awoke to find that they were at his door. Some one was trying to rouse him. It was Edith. He was dazed and impatient. He arose, groped blindly for the light button, and collided with a chair. This brought him to his senses.

“Yes, yes!” he mumbled. “What is it?”

“Open the door, father! Quickly!” The words were nor spoken loudly, but an imperative quality to his daughter’s voice cleared his head. He switched on the light, turned the bolt of his lock, and opened the door. He saw instantly that the girl was frightened; her face was strained, her eyes were terrified.

“Oh, quick—! Mother! . . . She won’t answer!”

“Eh? Won’t answer?”

“Her door is locked. I’ve been knocking, calling—I didn’t want to rouse everybody—but I smell gas!” Edith clutched at her father, tried to drag him with her. She was shaking wretchedly and moaning.

Gilbert was thoroughly awake now. It was but a step to his wife’s door. He tried the knob and called, “Alice!”

“Don’t you smell it?” Edith suddenly emitted a cry and began to pound with her fists upon the door. She flung her weight against it.

Terror smote Henry Gilbert at last and aroused him to action. He ran back into his own chamber and returned with the key he had taken from his wife’s door; with trembling fingers he fitted it into the lock.

“Stand back!” he ordered, then he flung the door wide. He was all but smothered by the fumes that rushed forth. He seized Edith as she was about to enter and shoved her down the hall, then, holding his breath, he dove headlong into the room. It was as brilliantly lighted as when he had left it; on the rug immediately in front of the fireplace lay his wife. She still wore her little blue party dress; her head rested upon one bare arm; she lay curled up like a tired, sleeping child.

As Gilbert stooped to pick her up he heard a low, steady hissing from the open valve of the gas logs.

He remembered vaguely staggering out of the place and into his own room, laying the inert figure upon his own bed, and then returning to shut off the gas and to fling open the windows in his wife’s room. By the time this had been done and he emerged, dizzy and gasping, the house had been aroused and was in terror, in chaos. Half-clad servants had appeared, there were cries, the wringing of hands, a swift scurrying of feet. From somewhere came a frantic tinkle of the telephone bell and an urgent call for the family physician. Meanwhile, futile efforts at resuscitation were going on in the owner’s room, and in these Gilbert took a mechanical part.

It was all like a hideous nightmare. He could not rid himself of the conviction that he was dreaming. This was too terrible. Unavailingly he tried to throw off that horrid feeling of unreality.

It seemed only a moment—or was it hours?—before the doctor arrived. He, too, was half clad; he had run the block and a half from his house. His examination did not take long. He straightened himself and his lips moved, but Henry Gilbert did not hear what he said, for there was a roaring in his ears. It was like the rumble of a heavy surf—or the sound of shouting voices. That was it. Men shouting! The hoarse howling of an angry mob! The city was awake; from its house-tops people were shouting that Henry Gilbert had killed his wife.

And in the husband’s nostrils, in his throat, in his lungs was the stench of gas. He knew that he would smell it, taste it, the rest of his life.