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think but if he had, he'd have been a stout, unromantic, short-tempered, middle-aged husband as likely as not.
    It was getting dark and I suggested that we should go down. Mrs. Mercado agreed and asked if I would like to see the laboratory. “My husband will be there - working.”
    I said I would like to very much and we made our way there. The place was lighted by a lamp but it was empty. Mrs. Mercado showed me some of the apparatus and some copper ornaments that were being treated, and also some bones coated with wax.
    “Where can Joseph be?” said Mrs. Mercado.
    She looked into the drawing-office, where Carey was at work. He hardly looked up as we entered, and I was struck by the extraordinary look of strain on his face. It came to me suddenly: “This man is at the end of his tether. Very soon, something will snap.” And I remembered somebody else had noticed that same tenseness about him.
    As we went out again I turned my head for one last look at him. He was bent over his paper, his lips pressed very closely together, and that “death's head” suggestion of his bones very strongly marked. Perhaps it was fanciful, but I thought that he looked like a knight of old who was going into battle and knew he was going to be killed.
    And again I felt what an extraordinary and quite unconscious power of attraction he had.
    We found Mr. Mercado in the living-room. He was explaining the idea of some new process to Mrs. Leidner. She was sitting on a straight wooden chair, embroidering flowers in fine silks, and I was struck anew by her strange, fragile, unearthly appearance. She looked a fairy creature more than flesh and blood.
    Mrs. Mercado said, her voice high and shrill:
    “Oh, there you are, Joseph. We thought we'd find you in the lab.”
    He jumped up looking startled and confused, as though her entrance had broken a spell. He said stammeringly:
    “I - I must go now. I'm in the middle of - middle of -”
    He didn't complete the sentence but turned towards the door.
    Mrs. Leidner said in her soft, drawling voice:
    “You must finish telling me some other time. It was very interesting.”
    She looked up at us, smiled rather sweetly but in a faraway manner, and bent over her embroidery again.
    In a minute or two, she said:
    “There are some books over there, nurse. We've got quite a good selection. Choose one and sit down.”
    I went over to the bookshelf. Mrs. Mercado stayed for a minute or two, then, turning abruptly, she went out. As she passed me I saw her face and I didn't like the look of it. She looked wild with fury.
    In spite of myself I remembered some of the things Mrs. Kelsey had said and hinted about Mrs. Leidner. I didn't like to think they were true because I liked Mrs. Leidner, but I wondered, nevertheless, if there mightn't perhaps be a grain of truth behind them.
    I didn't think it was all her fault, but the fact remained that dear ugly Miss Johnson, and that common little spit-fire Mrs. Mercado, couldn't hold a candle to her in looks or in attraction. And after all, men are men all over the world. You soon see a lot of that in my profession.
    Mercado was a poor fish, and I don't suppose Mrs. Leidner really cared two hoots for his admiration - but his wife cared. If I wasn't mistaken, she minded badly and would be quite willing to do Mrs. Leidner a bad turn if she could.
    I looked at Mrs. Leidner sitting there and sewing at her pretty flowers, so remote and far away and aloof. I felt somehow I ought to warn her. I felt that perhaps she didn't know how stupid and unreasoning and violent jealousy and hate can be - and how little it takes to set them smouldering.
    And then I said to myself, “Amy Leatheran, you're a fool. Mrs. Leidner's no chicken. She's close on forty if she's a day, and she must know all about life there is to know.”
    But I felt that all the same perhaps she didn't.
    She had such a queer untouched look.
    I began to wonder what her life had been. I knew she'd only married Dr. Leidner two