But how his begging for her forgiveness cut her to the heart! That he should do this, while it was she whose part it was, only she had not been woman enough. She had been sorry--God knows she had been sorry for him, and sorry for her own part in the catastrophe of July. But she had known it was inevitable, she could not have married him, she could not have done otherwise than marry Evelyn, and it was perhaps this sense that she was but a tool in the hands of the irresistible law which had excused her to herself, so that she had said almost that it was the Power that made them all three what they were that had done this. And thus her human pity and sorrow had been veiled. But now that veil was plucked aside; whatever great and inexorable laws ruled feeling and action, nothing could alter the fact that here was she, unhappy and sick at heart, and that another man, who loved her, unhappy, too, was man enough to forget his own unhappiness, to forget, too, that it was she who, willing or unwilling, had brought it on him, and let himself be guided only by the divine and human impulse of Pity, so that he desired nothing in the world more than to be allowed to help her. Yet how bitter it was, somehow, that it should be he of all men in the world who should offer to help. And his offer was so humble, yet so assured, it was made so simply, and yet--here was Philip's hand again--so authoritatively. "You will want someone with you to look after you...." That was Philip, too, and though it was all bitter, what unspeakable comfort it was to feel that somebody strong and tender was waiting to take care of them, only asking to be allowed to take care of them. In spite of Lady Dover and all her kindness, Madge felt so lonely: no one could understand that so well as Philip, who had felt lonely, too.