The maid came and he told her to make tea—the hottest kind she ever heard of—and to bring things with it—toast or whatever it was—she knew. Then he went on to ask what she could do about footwear for Mrs. Findlay, who was cold and wet and also very tired; and wouldn’t Hulda please take charge of her and arrange things satisfactorily? Hulda said she thought she could manage if the lady wouldn’t mind wearing some of her things, and Haworth said he was sure she wouldn’t—and over his shoulder toward Edith, “You wouldn’t, would you?” And he saw the top of her little round hat above the back of the chair shaking slightly for “no” and heard a very faint sniffle, and told Hulda it would be all right. Upon which the maid departed to attend to everything. Haworth stood uncertain a moment, for the first sniffle had alarmed him, as he realized that he wouldn’t have an idea what to do if Mrs. Findlay was actually crying. He earnestly hoped she wasn’t, yet had a fairly trustworthy intuition that such a thing was at that moment transpiring; and it occurred to him that if this was so, the correct and possibly even the noble behavior might be to go away and leave her. On the other hand, something might be seriously the matter, and probably was, otherwise why should such a thing be going on? This latter seemed the most sensible view, and on arriving at it he went over very quietly and stood by the marble mantel, which brought him quite near and almost in front of her. She was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief every now and then, and as the firelight flickered on the hand that was doing it, he couldn’t help seeing that it was a perfect dear of a little hand. He didn’t understand how he could be thinking of this at such a time, when she was in evident distress; but for a moment he couldn’t think of anything else. And the diminutive wad of crumpled handkerchief,—also the wet and worn-out little shoes, appealed to him in some peculiar way that brought on, deep down in his system, an almost unbearable ache. Suddenly she looked up at him. “Do you know what I ought to do?” He shook his head as he stood looking down at her. “I ought to run out of the house this—this very instant.” She glanced anxiously about as if meditating flight, which, in fact, she was. “What for?” Haworth asked. “For you,” she said. The shadow of a smile passed over Haworth’s face. “That wouldn’t do _me_ any good.” “Oh, it would—it would!” she cried out. “Because our being here is going to—to——” She was unable to go on. “What is it going to do?” he finally asked. She looked at him steadily for a moment, and then shook her head a little, but did not speak. “Please tell me this: Is it true that your husband is Mr. Cripps’s nephew?” “Yes, Mr. Haworth.” “Then, even though it’s going to be so terrible, I’d rather have him stay. Mr. Cripps never said anything about having a nephew. I’m afraid there was some injustice done.”