"Good God!" I muttered under my breath. For it was diabolical, almost, the way he had planned everything during that night of sleeplessness. Six hours before, just after his interview with the hotel-clerk, he had been wild and excited; but now he was calm--deadly calm. And I don't know which condition made him look more ill. It was, anyhow, a sombre and unnerving calmness, and it somehow took the courage out of me. I found that I couldn't think clearly in the face of it, much less talk clearly; my mind was overburdened by the knowledge that he was ill. All I could say, when I had to say something, was that Severn's private affairs, however scandalous, were none of our business, and that we had better keep out of them. After all, what could we do? Talking to him wouldn't be much use. "As soon as he cares to tell us to mind our own business, we shall have to slink off. Don't you see?" "I don't think _I_ should slink off," he said, quietly, "if he told me to mind my own business." "Then what would you do? What _could_ you do, anyway?" And he answered, between almost closed lips: "I know what I--what we--are _going_ to do. We're going to make him go back to Helen." It was the first time her name had been mentioned, and it seemed to give us both a shock to hear it, as if, until then, she had been outside the question--unrealised and unthought-of. Somehow, also, it took away an atom of his calmness, and made me better able to oppose him. For, frankly, the thought of buttonholing Severn and commanding him to return to his wife appalled me; I suppose I wasn't ever meant to be either a judge or a missionary. I couldn't do it. I said: "It's no good, Terry--there are some things I won't agree to, and that's one of them. It isn't that I don't sympathize with what you feel--it's just that it seems to me so--so absurd to suppose that we can achieve anything.... Damn it all, if you or I were cad enough to run off with some woman, do you think we'd welcome a lecture from an outsider about it?" He said quietly: "It might be the thing we needed most of all." "You can bet Severn won't need it, anyhow." "Very well, then, if we fail, we fail. But that's no reason against trying, is it?" "_I'm_ not going to try.... I'm sorry, but I mean it." "All right then. I'll try on my own." "Really--I'm sorry--but----" He smiled. "I don't mind a bit," he answered. "Besides, it may be easier for me than for you. You see, I haven't got your limitations. I don't care about good taste, or what's 'done' in such matters. I just do what I feel I _must_ do."