“He doesn’t knock me about, if that’s what you mean--he knows I wouldn’t stand it--but of course he doesn’t care for me, or for anybody but himself. I was told he gave his first a rotten time--anyway, I know she used to look wretched enough. You know there was a first Mrs. Williams?” “No, I didn’t. Of course, I saw he was much older than you. Oh, Elsie, whatever made you marry him?” “Oh, I was a fool and I thought I’d like to be married, and get away from home. I didn’t know what it was going to be like, that’s certain. Oh, Les, fancy if I was still Elsie Palmer, and you and me could get married!” She gave a sob. “Don’t, sweetheart! I’d have asked for your promise, fast enough, if you’d been free, but I couldn’t marry any girl till I’m earning a bit more.” “Don’t you get a good screw, Leslie?” “Rotten. But I’m jolly lucky to be in a job at all these days, I suppose.” “Lucky!” Elsie echoed the word drearily. “You and I aren’t amongst the lucky ones, boy. I don’t see how things are ever going to come right for us, without a miracle happens.” “He--Williams--may ... he may die.” “Not he!” said Elsie bitterly. “There’s nothing the matter with him. All this talk about indigestion is stuff and nonsense--just fads he’s got into his head. There’s nothing wrong with Horace. And it’s always the ones who aren’t wanted that live on and on. But how am I going to bear it, after this wonderful time we’ve been having?” She began to cry. “Elsie, don’t, darling! I’ll think of a way. There must be some way out.” Leslie took her in his arms and she forgot everything else. On the last evening they all went to the theatre together, and it was there, for the first time seeming awake to the situation, that Horace Williams, sitting at the end of the row of stalls, suddenly leaned across Geraldine and looked long and balefully at his wife. She felt herself changing colour. Morrison, however, observed nothing. He talked only to Elsie, looked only at her during the interval, and whilst the play was in progress and the lights in the theatre lowered, his hand sought and held hers. “Elsie, we can’t part like this. How can I see you alone?” “We can’t--not here. But Horace starts at the office again on Wednesday, and he’s there all day. Come to the house.” “It means an age without seeing you. Elsie, can I write to you?” “Yes ... no....” She was startled. “Oh, Les, darling, I’d love your letters!... But he’d see them. Wait a minute.” She thought rapidly. “Address them to the post-office--I’ll call there. He doesn’t know or care what I do all day, so long as I’m always there in the evenings when he gets back.” But Elsie was to find herself mistaken. Her husband, after their return to the suburban villa, displayed a very unmistakable interest in her movements during the hours of his absence at work. He obliged her to give him an account of her day, and took to ringing her up on the telephone for no acknowledged reason, and always at a different hour.