then gratefully return from Texas (where he was really getting on much
better than he had ever done at home--Dr. Vivian had practically said
so); his father would quietly take him back; and it would be generally
understood that Jack was not a coward now, and was greatly improved
morally by the disciplinary exile, and everything would be all right.
But of course the difficulty here was that somebody (like Colonel
Dalhousie, for instance) might think to ask why the discovery of the
little misunderstanding came now, instead of six months ago. You could
hardly reply to such an one that you had just discovered the mistake as
the result of a flare-up, caused by a slum doctor's giving twenty-five
thousand dollars to buy an old hotel. Who would understand that, when
you didn't yourself?...

Carlisle, indeed, being a practical girl, did not linger long on the
optimistic prospect. For to-night at least, "telling" seemed a matter
too dreadful to contemplate. Colonel Dalhousie was an irascible and
solitary widower with one son whom he had once been proud of; and this
son, having been strangely compelled to take a lady's word as to his own
conduct, had been disgraced by that word, cast out with his father's
curse upon his forehead. Was it likely that these two would take the
discovery of a little misunderstanding now with a charming quiet
courtesy?--that, shouting the discovery abroad to save their faces, they
would have due regard for careful qualifications and for striking the
right note? The reply was the negative: it was not at all likely.

Cally knew the world's rough judgments, where all is black or all is
white, and ifs and buts go overboard as spoiling the strong color
scheme. And well she knew the way of horrid gossip; none better. That
she, Carlisle Heth, had deliberately lied merely to save her name from
public association with young Dalhousie's, and by this lie had ruined a