From time to time he glanced at her and on every occasion the mounting appreciation of her beauty, the unfaltering earnestness of her desire to learn every detail about her husband, the wonder that her sort could remain devoted to Ned Lytton's kind, combined to enrage him, to make him rebel hotly, even as he talked, at thought of such impossible human relations, and he was on the point of giving vent to his indignation when he remembered with a decided shock that on their first meeting she had told him that she loved her husband. Beyond that, he reasoned, nothing could be said. "He's awful weak, of course, but he was quiet," he concluded. "I left him sleepin' an' I'll get back before he rouses up, it's likely." "Well, don't you think I might go back with you?" she asked, eagerly. "Don't you think he's strong enough now, so I might be with him?" He had expected this and was steeled against it. "Why, you might, ma'am, if things was different," he said. "It's sort of rough out there; just a shack, understand, an' you've never lived that kind of life. There's only one room, an' I...." "Oh, I hadn't thought of crowding you out! Please don't think I'd overlook your own comfort." Her regret was so spontaneous, that he stirred uneasily, for he was not accustomed to lying. "Not at all, ma'am. Why, I'd move out an' sleep in th' hills for you, if I knew it was best ... for you!" The heart that was in his voice startled her. She sat back in her chair. "You've been very kind ... so kind!" she said, after a pause. He fidgetted in his chair and rose. "Nobody could help bein' kind ... to you, ma'am," he stammered. "If anybody was anything but kind to you they deserve...." He realized of a sudden that the man for whose sake she was undergoing this ordeal had been cruel to her, and checked himself. Because bitterness surged up within him and he felt that to follow his first impulses would place him between Ann Lytton and her husband, aligned against the man in the rôle of protector. She divined the reason for his silence and said very gently, "Remember the cripples!" He turned toward her so fiercely that she started back, having risen. "I'm tryin' to!" he cried, with a surprising sharpness. "Tryin' to, ma'am, every minute; tryin' to remember th' cripples." He looked about in flushed confusion. Ann stared at him.