“I don’t know. Mother said once that you had love for nothing but yourself. It isn’t true, is it? Sometimes I think I would have done better if I had married Albert Spark. I believe he’s fonder of me now than you are.” He looked impatient and at a loss what to do. He could not understand unselfish love; self-protection was his own strongest feeling; everything else was merely a means, a weapon to be used in attaining it. “You mustn’t keep me in the rain,” he said; “the old woman will be back by this time. Why do you think I don’t care for you?” “I don’t know,” and as she spoke the tears came into her eyes; “I think it was because you just let me go in the rain and didn’t see that I’d get wet through. It doesn’t matter, but I’d like you to have seen it.” “You are stronger than I am. It is dangerous for me to get wet: I came out in the rain to meet you.” “And then, perhaps I oughtn’t to say it, but you took the money and didn’t offer me a shilling to keep for myself.” “I didn’t know you wanted it. You can’t expect me to go without anything in my pocket?” “No,” and she burst into tears; “it’s only sometimes I get dissatisfied,” she added apologetically. “You should have done it in the shed. You ought not to keep me here in the rain. You know that.” “No, I oughtn’t; you go on, dear”—there was sudden repentance in her voice. “Just kiss me and say you are fond of me again.” He leaned over her, and for a moment his eyes flashed, as he kissed her with a loathsome eagerness that left the woman’s heart more hungry than before. “I am fond of you,” he said; “you know I am fond of you—when I see you. But I can’t come to Liphook to be dunned for money.” “I always do the best I can to get things for you; and if I have plenty of work I’ll take care it’s more comfortable, if you’ll only come. There, go now, Alfred dear. I don’t want to keep you in the wet. It’s only that we have been married these four years, and, somehow, we never seem to have got any good of it yet.” She put her arms round his neck for a moment “I am awful fond of you,” she said, and turned away.