“You have changed your dress, Natalie,” he said aloud. It was the first time he had ever called her by that name. Tears were in his eyes and his knees suddenly felt weak. He walked, a little unsteadily, across the room, and knelt beside her. Then he put his head in her lap and felt her broad strong hand in his hair and on his cheek. For a long time he knelt thus breathing deeply. The thoughts of the morning came back. After all though he wasn’t thinking. The things going on within him were not so definite as thoughts. If his body were a house it was now the cleansing time for that house. A thousand little creatures were running through the house, going swiftly up and down stairs, opening windows, laughing, crying to each other. The rooms of his house echoed with new sounds, with joyous sounds. His body trembled. Now, after this had happened, a new life would begin for him. His body would be more alive. He would see things, smell things, taste things, as never before. He looked up into Natalie’s face. How much did she know of all this? Well, she would no doubt be unable to say it in words but there was a way in which she did understand. She had run home to bathe and array herself. That was the reason he knew she knew. “How long have you been ready for this to happen?” he asked. “For a year,” she said. She had grown a little pale. In the room it was beginning to grow dark. She got up and putting him gently aside went to the door leading into the outer office and slipped a bolt that would prevent the door being opened. Now she was standing with her back to the door and with her hand on the knob as he had been standing some time before. He got up and went to his own desk, near a window that faced the spur of the railroad track, and sat in his office chair. Leaning forward he buried his face in his two arms. The trembling, shaking thing continued to go on within him. Still the little joyous voices called. The cleansing within was going on and on. Natalie spoke of the affairs of the office. “There were some letters, but I answered them and even dared to sign your name. I did not want you to be bothered to-day.” She came to where he sat, leaning forward on the desk, trembling, and knelt beside him. After a time he put an arm about her shoulder. The outside noises of the office went steadily on. In the outer office someone was running a typewriting machine. It was quite dark in the inner office now, but above the railroad track, some two or three hundred yards away, there was a lamp suspended in the air and when it was lighted a faint light came into the dark room and fell upon the two crouched figures. Presently a whistle blew and the workers from the factory went off up the spur of track. In the outer office the four people were getting ready to go home.