The dreariness that had once obtained had long vanished. All inside the house was light and bright and cheerful for him now, and each day sent him home with this recognition deeper in his heart, and more remorseful because of certain acts of his which now never could be undone. Mrs. Wymans, when she made her appearance at Renton, had rehearsed her apology, and then found that it must be put differently. The extreme quiet of Mrs. Dorriman's manner was a check she had hardly counted upon. When they had that encounter in the railway carriage the poor little lady had been troubled and nervous, her manner was agitated; and Mrs. Wymans, who was a shrewd observer, saw that she stopped the conversation about her brother from a sense of right, and that she was evidently not resenting it in a sisterly fashion. From this she drew several inferences, everyone of which had to be laid aside now. "Your brother, I hear, has been so ill we did not like to intrude, and before--you went away----" she said, which was not in the least what she had meant to say. "Yes," said Mrs. Dorriman, "we went away, and had you been so kind as to call before this I could not have seen you, my brother has been so very ill." "And you have no nurse?" said Mrs. Wymans, betraying her knowledge of the internal economy of the household. "You must find the nursing very troublesome and most fatiguing. I know of an excellent woman who could come at a moment's notice." "Thank you, but I am happy to say that the fatigue, like the illness, lies in the past. My brother is quite well again, and out and about his usual business." "Of course he likes his business, he is so successful; the trial is where hard work is not successful," and Mrs. Wymans spoke feelingly. "I think my brother meets with some success and probably some trials also, but these are only words too; we never talk of business together, and I know nothing about his." "Really! Forgive me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, but then where is the sympathy? And a woman has such sharp eyes. I never rest till I know every single thing that is going on--that is my way of showing sympathy." "But it must tire your husband, does it not? A woman can see only one side, and then she cannot help in the way of advice. Her advice cannot be useful." "That is only a notion of yours," said Mrs. Wymans, a little nettled, "and why should a woman only know one side of a thing?" "Because she only hears her husband's views; of course his private affairs cannot be talked over with another person, therefore the wife's views must be a little one-sided." "Oh no, mine are not. I hear a thing and see a great many sides all at once." "Perhaps you are cleverer than I am," said Mrs. Dorriman, in all humility, glad that at any rate the question of the Rivers girls had not cropped up.