Ruys's repentant fit soon began to pass away, and there seemed every prospect of an aftermath of backsliding. She had honestly and soulfully tried to mend, and for a few weeks everything went smoothly--at least outwardly--for there was a hard struggle going on within. Then she began to think the air was getting too pure for her to live in, and then in her desperation she again opened up the subject of the removal to Dagon, and to her surprise and joy found her husband met her more than halfway in this. She had no very definite object in urging the move beyond that it would enable her to flee an ever-present temptation. It would have been well for Smalley if he had seen what was going on, but Habakkuk had never gauged that wayward heart. With all his love for her, he had never been able to understand his wife. It was a mystery to him how she had ever come to marry him, how he had ever come to ask her to share his lot. She had accepted the offer in one of those capricious moods in which women of her nature do absolutely anything, and she was, in fact, nothing more or less than a refined and educated Ma Mie, without, perhaps, the rugged nobleness of the Burman woman. When she first knew Habakkuk he had just thrown aside a lucrative practice as a physician to enter the ministry with a view to going on the Eastern mission. This in itself was sufficient to attract an emotional woman, and there was something also in the innate nobleness of soul within his ungainly frame that drew her toward him. She had one of her "good" fits on. Here was something so very different from the smart young men of her set who worshipped the almighty dollar, and dreamed of the almighty dollar, whose one idea was to amass a fortune, and to whom a business operation which successfully brought a friend perhaps to ruin was a creditable thing. She felt that marriage with such an one was a moral abasement, and so she signalled, in that silent way that women know, to the strong and loving nature that was hovering near her, and he came at her call. Something within him, he knew not what, prompted him to speak, and he simply told her of his love, and turned to go. It never for one moment crossed him that he would meet anything but a refusal, and when she softly called him back and put her hand in his, he was unable at first to realize that his apparently absurd ambition had been crowned with success. They were married, and almost immediately left for the East, and almost as immediately Ruys began to repent of the step she had taken and wished herself back again. Those smart young men who worshipped the almighty dollar--after all, they were not so bad. She began to contrast them with her husband, and then she began to be miserable. Habakkuk saw this much, that she was miserable, and put it down to seasickness. By the time he reached Burma he reflected that his wife had about fifty different characters, and could slip on one as easily as she slipped on a dress.