"I don't think, Mr. Hogg," he said, "that there's anything to be gained by our discussing this just now. I have only this morning heard of it. You may be assured that justice will be done, absolute justice, to your daughter and yourself." Hogg moved to the door. "Why, certainly, Archdeacon. It is a bit early to discuss things. I daresay we shall be havin' many a talk about it all before it's over. I'm sure I only want to be friendly in the matter. As I said before, we're in the same box, you and me, so to speak. That ought to make us tender towards one another, oughtn't it? One losing his son and the other his daughter. "Such a good girl as she was too. Certainly I'll be going, Archdeacon; leave you to think it over a bit. I daresay you'll see my point of view in time." "I think, Mr. Hogg, there's nothing to be gained by your coming here. You shall hear from me." "Well, as to that, Archdeacon," Hogg turned from the half-opened door, smiling, "that's as may be. One can get further sometimes in a little talk than in a dozen letters. And I'm really not much of a letter-writer. But we'll see 'ow things go on. Good-evenin'." The talk had lasted but five minutes, and every piece of furniture in the room, the chairs, the table, the carpet, the pictures, seemed to have upon it some new stain of disfigurement. Even the windows were dimmed. Brandon sat staring in front of him. The door opened again and his wife came in. "That was Samuel Hogg who has just left you?" "Yes," he said. He looked across the room at her and was instantly surprised by the strangest feeling. He was not, in his daily life, conscious of "feelings" of any sort--that was not his way. But the events of the past two days seemed to bring him suddenly into a new contact with real life, as though, having lived in a balloon all this time, he had been suddenly bumped out of it with a jerk and found Mother Earth with a terrible bang. He would have told you a week ago that there was nothing about his wife that he did not know and nothing about his own feelings towards her--and yet, after all, the most that he had known was to have no especial feelings towards her of any kind. But to-day had been beyond possible question the most horrible day he had ever known, and it might be that the very horror of it was to force him to look upon everything on earth with new eyes. It had at least the immediate effect now of showing his wife to him as part of himself, as some one, therefore, hurt as he was, smirched and soiled and abused as he, needing care and kindness as he had never known her to need it before. It was a new feeling for him, a new tenderness. He greeted and welcomed it as a relief after the horror of Hogg's presence. Poor Amy! She was in as bad a way as he now--they were at last in the same box. "Yes," he said, "that was Hogg."