After an agitated pause he went on: 'As far as I make out, you're sacrificing yourself to Bruce. When he ran away with that girl, and begged you to divorce him, you could have done it. You cared for me. Everything would have been right, even before the world. No-one would have blamed you. Yet you wouldn't.' 'But that _wasn't_ for the world, Aylmer; you don't understand. It was for myself. Something in me, which I can't help. I felt Bruce needed me and would go wrong without me--' 'Why should you care? Did he consider you?' 'That isn't the point, dear boy. I felt as if he was my son, so to speak--a sort of feeling of responsibility.' 'Yes, quite. It was quixotic rubbish. That's my opinion. There!' Edith said nothing, remembering he was still ill. 'Well,' he went on, 'now, he _hasn't_ run away from you. He's stayed with you for three years; utterly incapable of appreciating you, as I know he is, bothering you to death.' 'Oh, Aylmer!' 'Don't I know him? You're wasting and frittering yourself away for nothing.' 'The children--' 'Don't you think I'd have looked after the children better than he?' 'Yes, I do, Aylmer. But he _is_ their father. They may keep him straight.' 'I consider you're utterly wasted,' he said. 'Well! He's stuck to you, apparently, for these last three years (as far as you know), and now I'm going to ask you something entirely different, for the last time. When I was dying, or thought I was, things showed themselves clearly enough, I can tell you. And I made up my mind if I lived to see you, to say this. Leave Bruce, with me!' She stared at him. 'In six weeks, when he's tired of telling his friends at the club about it, he'll make up his mind, I suppose, if you insist, or even without, to divorce you. But do you suppose he'll keep the children? No, my dear of course he won't. You'll never have to leave them. I would never ask you that. Now listen!' He put his hand over hers, not caressingly, but to keep her quiet. 'He'll want to marry again, won't he?' 'Very likely,' she answered. 'Probably already he's in love with that woman What's-her-name--Madame Frabelle--who's staying with you.' Edith gave a little laugh. 'Perhaps he's in love with her already,' continued Aylmer. 'Quite impossible!' said Edith calmly. 'She's a very good sort. She's not a fool, like the girl. She'd look after Bruce very well.' 'So she would,' answered Edith. 'Bruce will adore her, be under her thumb, and keep perfectly 'straight', as you call it--as straight as he ever would. Won't he?' She was silent. 'You'll get the children then, don't you see?' 'Yes. With a bad reputation, with a cloud on my life, to bring up Dilly!' He sighed impatiently, and said: 'You see, you don't see things as they really are, even now. How could you ever possibly hurt Dilly? You're only thinking of what the world says, now.