“Very well, then. I know what _that_ means. When a doctor tells you not to talk, it’s because he knows he can’t do you any good. As soon as George Maynard gets here I will have some one that can cure me, or I will know the reason why.” The conception of her husband as a champion seemed to commend him to her in novel degree. She shed some tears, and after a little reflection she asked, “How soon will he be here?” “I don’t know,” said Grace. “He seems to have started yesterday morning.” “He can be here by day after to-morrow,” Mrs. Maynard computed. “There will be some one to look after poor little Bella then,” she added, as if, during her sickness, Bella must have been wholly neglected. “Don’t let the child be _all_ dirt when her father comes.” “Mother will look after Bella,” Grace replied, too meek again to resent the implication. After a pause, “Oh, Louise,” she added beseechingly, “I’ve suffered so much from my own wrong-headedness and obstinacy that I couldn’t bear to see you taking the same risk, and I’m so glad that you are going to meet your husband in the right spirit.” “What right spirit?” croaked Mrs. Maynard. “The wish to please him, to”— “I don’t choose to have him say that his child disgraces him,” replied Mrs. Maynard, in the low, husky, monotonous murmur in which she was obliged to utter everything. “But, _dear_ Louise!” cried the other, “you choose something else too, don’t you? You wish to meet him as if no unkindness had parted you, and as if you were to be always together after this? I _hope_ you do! Then I should feel that all this suffering and, trouble was a mercy.” “Other people’s misery is always a mercy to them,” hoarsely suggested Mrs. Maynard. “Yes, I know that,” Grace submitted, with meek conviction. “But, Louise,” she pleaded, “you _will_ make up with your husband, won’t you? Whatever he has done, that will surely be best. I know that you love him, and that he must love you, yet. It’s the only way. If you were finally separated from him, and you and he could be happy apart, what would become of that poor child? Who will take a father’s place with her? That’s the worst about it. Oh, Louise, I feel so badly for you—for what you have lost, and may lose. Marriage must change people so that unless they live to each other, their lives will be maimed and useless. It ought to be so much easier to forgive any wrong your husband does you than to punish it; for that perpetuates the wrong, and forgiveness ends it, and it’s the only thing that can end a wrong. I am sure that your husband will be ready to do or say anything you wish; but if he shouldn’t, Louise, you _will_ receive him forgivingly, and make the first advance? It’s a woman’s right to make the advances in forgiving.”