"Don't break all his illusions," she heard Ruth saying, miles away. "Be gentle with him if you're fond of him. You know how sensitive he is. Your books, you say, sell better. How do you think he could ever endure that, he who--I tell you--is nothing but a child? It would be agony, a life-time agony; disgrace. He lives upon success, on admiration, on being the centre even of a little house. How could a man like that endure to be just Helena Brett's husband? ... Oh no, you won't do it, you can't be so brutal. No one can forbid you your career, but go away and work it out alone. _I_ will look after Hubert, if he needs me." That struck home, among these words that came dully to Helena through the chaos of her thought. "So that's it," she said with a bitter laugh, longing to hurt somehow. "You're thinking of yourself." "God knows," said Ruth solemnly, "I wouldn't come back willingly for half the world, fond as I am of Hugh. I've _lived_ since I got right away alone beside the sea. He always trampled on me; I lay down; I haven't got your courage. I often cried myself to sleep--and he not even guessing he had been unkind! It was hideous, I see now; hideous every day of it. But I'd go through it all again, and worse, sooner than expose him to this agony." There was conviction in her tones. Helena tried to arouse herself. "Leave him?" she said dully. "Surely there's some other way? Even if he didn't mind, think of---- You talk about agony, but how can you advise me to do this, when you know how his friends----"