He stared down into her upturned face. He had thought he knew her, heart and soul, but he found himself thoroughly astonished by this new attitude. He was so accustomed to a charming compliance in her, he could hardly realize that he was being brought to book in a manner at once so felicitous yet so firm. She gave him back his scrutiny without flinching, and somehow, though she put him in the wrong, he had never loved her better. Here was a comrade who could understand and influence him! "Bank the fires, eh?" he growled. "Not put them out? I should suppose you would have wanted them drowned out in a flood of tears of repentance for letting them burn." "No! You are you, and the fires are warming--when they are kept under control. You're fighting the harder for your patient's life because the fight's a hard one. But when you let the Devil fan the flame--" He burst into a great, unexpected laugh and caught her to his breast again. "That's what I'm doing, is it? That ever I should have lived to hear you use a phrase like that! But it's a true one, I admit it. I've let his Satanic Majesty have his own way with me, and bade him welcome, too. I may again, when I get away from you. But--well--I know you're right. I--I'll try to bank the fires, little wife. Only don't expect too much." "Red," said she,--and it was not at all the sort of rejoinder he might have expected after his concession,--"why is there no woodpile now behind the house?" "Woodpile?" He was clearly puzzled. "Why, there's plenty of wood in the cellar, you know, if you want fires. You can't be suffering for them, this weather?" "No, but I wish there were a woodpile there. Did you think you wouldn't need one any more after you were married? You should have laid in a double supply." "But, what for? Oh!--" Light dawned upon him. "Somebody's told you how I used to whack at it." "Yes, and I saw you once myself, only I didn't know what put the energy into your blows. It was a splendid safety-valve. Red,--send for a load of wood to-day, please!" "In July! You hard-hearted little wretch! Do you want me reduced to a pulp?" She nodded. "Better that than burning like a bonfire. And better than running the Imp sixty miles an hour. That doesn't help you,--it merely helps your arch enemy fan the flames." He laughed again, and the sound of his own laughter did him good, according to the laws of Nature. "Bless you, you've put him to rout for the moment at least, and that's more than any other human soul has ever done for mine, before." He kissed her, tenderly, and understanding what he did. In his heart he adored her for the sweetness and sense which had kept her from taking these days of trial as a personal affront and finding offence in them.