He walked across and halted, towering over her, looking helplessly down at the back of her bowed head. His arms were limp at his sides, until she swayed as though she would fall, and, then, he reached out to support her, grasping her shoulders gently with his big palms; when she steadied, he left his hands so, lifting the right one awkwardly to stroke her shivering shoulder. They stood silent many minutes, the man suffering with the woman, suffering largely because of his inability to bear a portion of her grief. After a time, he forced her about with his hands and, when she had turned halfway around, she lifted her face to look into his. She blinked and strained her eyes open and laughed mirthlessly, then was silent, with the knuckles of her fist pressed tightly against her mouth. "I am so glad ... so glad that it was you ..." she said, huskily, after a wait in which she mastered herself, the thought that was uppermost in her mind finding the first expression. "I heard you say, down there, that he was a cripple and that ... that's what he is ... what I thought. You ... you understand, don't you? A woman in my place _has_ to think something like that!"--in unconscious confession to a weakness. "I heard you say he was a cripple ... the man you were carrying ... and I thought it must be Ned, because I've had to think that, too. You understand? Don't you?" She looked into his eyes with the directness of a pleading child and, gripping her shoulders, he nodded. "I think I understand, ma'am. I ... and I hope you can forget all th' mean things I've said about him to-night. I--" "And when you called me in here," she interrupted, heedless of his attempt at apology, "I was afraid at first, because something told me it was he. I had come all the way from Maine to see him; to find out about him, and I didn't want to blind myself after that. I wanted to know ... the worst." "You have, ma'am," he said, grimly, and took his hands from her shoulders and turned away. "I was afraid it was Ned from the very first, but out there, with those other men around, I ... couldn't make myself look at him. And after that the suspense was horrible. I was glad when you called me to help you because that made me face it ... and even knowing what I know now is better in some ways than uncertainty. I ... I might have dodged, anyhow, if you hadn't made me feel you were trying to find out how far I would go ... what I would do. Your doubting me made me doubt myself and that ... that drove me on. "It took a lot of courage to look at his ... face. But I had to know. I had to; I'd come all this way to know." She hesitated, staring absently, and Bayard waited in silence for her to go on.