It seems incredible; but by no other hypothesis can I explain the facts.

If the reader can supply a better, he is entreated to do so.
At length, finding the constraint past all bearing, Mrs.Buzza rose to go.
"You will do it ?" whispered her hostess as they shook hands.
She could not trust herself to answer, but nodded and hastily left the room.

At the front door she almost ran against a thin, mild-faced gentleman.

He drew aside with a bow, and avoided the collision; but she did not notice him.
"I will do it," she kept repeating to herself, "in spite of the poor girls." A mist swept before her eyes as she passed down the road.
She staggered a little, with a vague feeling that the world was ending somehow; but she repeated-- "I will do it.

I have been a good wife to him; but it's all over now--it's all over to-night." The mild-faced gentleman into whom Mrs.Buzza had so nearly run in her agitation was Mr.Fogo.