As for himself he had to accept now his wife and daughter, draw close to them for a little before he went away with Natalie. It was a difficult thing to think about. He lay with wide-open eyes in his bed and tried to send his fancy into his wife’s room. He could not do it. His fancy could go into his daughter’s room and look at her lying asleep in her bed, but with his wife it was different. Something within him drew back. “Not now. Do not try it. It is not permitted. If she is ever to have a lover now it must be another,” a voice within him said. “Did she do something that has destroyed the possibility of that or did I?” he asked himself sitting up in bed. There was no doubt a human relationship had been spoiled--messed. “It is not permitted. It is not permitted to make a mess on the floor of the temple,” the answering voice within said sternly. To John Webster it seemed that the voices in the room spoke so loudly that as he lay down again and tried to sleep he was a little surprised that they had not awakened from their sleep the others in the house. II Into the air of the Webster house and into the air also of John Webster’s office and factory a new element had come. On all sides of him there was a straining at something within. When he was not alone or in the company of Natalie he no longer breathed freely. “You have done us an injury. You are doing us an injury,” everyone else seemed to be saying. He wondered about that, tried to think about it. The presence of Natalie gave him each day a breathing time. When he sat beside her in the office he breathed freely, the tight thing within him relaxed. It was because she was simple and straightforward. She said little, but her eyes spoke often. “It’s all right. I love you. I am not afraid to love you,” her eyes said. However he thought constantly of the others. The bookkeeper refused to look into his eyes or spoke with a new and elaborate politeness. He had already got into the habit of discussing the matter of John Webster and Natalie’s affair every evening with his wife. In the presence of his employer he now felt self-conscious and it was the same with the two older women in the office. As he passed through the office the younger of the three still sometimes looked up and smiled at him.