From very early that Thursday morning, before any one at the Bagsburys’ house was stirring, Harriet Sponley had lain in the white bed in Dick’s little white room, waiting. The delirium, which, all through the day before, had mercifully protected her, had gone away with the fever, and she remembered everything that had happened before she had started for the Bagsburys’ on Tuesday evening with perfect distinctness. But the interval of unconsciousness gave her a curious feeling of detachment from the Harriet she remembered. She looked back to those days as one might look at a picture: the excitement, the terror, the bitterness of those hours after she had learned what were her husband’s plans, she saw as clearly as possible; but the memory brought no revival of those emotions in her now. They had belonged to somebody else. She would begin to be that somebody again by and by, perhaps, but that did not matter now. So she lay quietly, sometimes dozing, sometimes broad awake, waiting for something. She did not try to guess what it would be. The room pleased her. It was bright and dainty, there was no unrestful decoration about it. It reminded her somehow of Dick. She asked for Miss Haselridge a number of times that morning, and was disappointed each time that they said she had not yet come home. She would have liked to have Dick about. When Alice Bagsbury tiptoed into the room, she generally pretended to be asleep, for Alice’s well-meant ministrations and inquiries were irritating. A little after four o’clock, she heard a step approaching her door, along the hall. It was a quiet tread, but the boards of the old floor creaked under it. For years she had known it better than any other, and in all those years it had never been unwelcome. But now it brought her back instantly to herself; she was again the broken, quivering Harriet she had looked at so impersonally a little while ago. With a sudden impulse of fear she turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes. She knew now what she had been waiting for. The door opened almost silently; then after a moment’s pause Melville Sponley walked softly across the room and sat down upon the bed close beside her. But not until she felt his hand upon her forehead did she dare open her eyes and look at him. “How is it going?” she asked, preventing the question that was on his lips. “I’ve waited all day to find out.” “Pretty well.” “No, tell me everything. I’m not afraid--of that.” “I don’t believe you are. I don’t believe you’re afraid of anything. But it isn’t easy to tell. They’ve beaten us, Harriet. They closed me out just before noon. We’re broke.” She turned quickly away and buried her face in the pillow. “I thought I should never have to tell you anything like that,” he went on, speaking slowly, for the words came hard. “I didn’t think anybody could beat me.”