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tMimn. i . M k H l'i,..'ValVrPPWWPggl CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE THE FEET OF CLAY Herbert Spencer came to see me woman. She can help me very much today, and a more-abject creature I never saw. "What am I going to do, Mrs. Wa verly?" he asked. "I am disgraced forever." I really felt almost sorry for him, poor man. He had always had such a wonderful confidence in himself. I could not help thinking of poor Kitty's definition of him, "a pedes taled saint," and now even he him self had discovered that his feet were clay. "The little blonde nurse was very pretty, Herbert" "Damnably so!" he asserted with a groan. J1Why did you not marry her?" "I thought that people would say I was unfeeling to marry so soon after Kitty's death." ' "And so you made love in secret, rather than face the idle speech of people." "She was always there with the child," he said as if in extenuation, "doing all those little intimate things that mothers do for babies. When she had the croup for three nights we both hung over her, watching every breath that we thought might be her last. I grew to love her, to want her. She seemed an ideal mother, and and well, she con fessed she loved me. We both de cided that we could not marry so soon after Kitty's death, but, alas, we could not keep apart" "It seems to me, Herbert, that your worst sin after all was giving up this woman who loved you and announcing that you are going to marry some other woman." Herbert covered his face with his hands. "Oh, Margie, I sometimes think that this awful thing has been sent to me in punishment for my ego tism. I thought I was not as other men are, and I have found out that I in my work. She has done so. I know she was interested in me before I married Kitty, and she let it be seen very patiently that she would not say no if I asked her to be my wife. At last she openly hinted that she must withdraw her support of the settle ment if I married anyone else. She, too, is very pretty, very sweet" (You see, it is not the woman, but a wom an, little book.) "Oh, if you could know how horrible it all was. I final ly came to the conclusio" it was not right to my poor to cas Are. Aimer aside. Kitty had been dead a year and I asked her to be my wife." "What did you think that little blonde nurse would do, Herbert?" The color surged over his face. "I thought she would see it as I did, as something that was best to do." "Why, of course, my dear Her bert, it was best for you but what of her? Was it best for her to give up the child that she had cared for since its birth, and had probably grown to love with the same inten sity as its mother might have done? "Was it best for her to try to strangle in her breast the thought that you had never loved her? "Was it best for her to lose some of her self-respect, for I believe it is only when a man leaves a woman who has given herself to him through overpowering love that remorse rears its ugly, terrifying head? "Was it best for her to know that in the future there would be lonely nights when sleep would never come to mercifully shut out the picture of another woman doing for you and your child? Was it" "Stop, Margie I can't bear it Can't you see that my decision was based on my duty to my poor peo ple?" "Herbert Spencer, it were better that every person man, woman and am. Mrs. Aimer is a very wealthy J chM-rfn joiir settlement should livfi im 2i