When the woman has once taken flight, or is hesitating before taking her flight, in the Eighth Year, it is an almost hopeless business for the husband to call her back. Whenever she is called back, it is by some outside influence, beyond _his_ sphere of influence, by some sudden accident, by some catastrophe involving both of them, or by some severe moral shock, shaking the foundations of their little home like an earthquake. There are cases in which the woman has been called back by the sudden smash-up of her husband’s business, by financial ruin. In his social ladder-climbing he is too rash. One of the rungs of the ladder breaks beneath his feet and he comes toppling down. Owing to this deadly competition of modern life, he loses his “job.” It is given to a younger or better man, or to a man with a stronger social pull. He comes home one day with a white face, trembling, horribly scared, afraid to break the news to a woman who has not been helpful to him of late, and of whose sympathy he is no longer sure. He believes that this misfortune is the last straw which will break their strained relations. He sees the great tragedy looming ahead, hearing down upon him. But, curiously enough, this apparent disaster is the salvation of both of them. The despair of her husband calls to the woman’s loyalty. All her grievances against this man are suddenly swallowed up in the precipice which has opened beneath his feet. All her antagonism is broken down and dissolved into pity. Her self-pride is slain by this man’s abasement. His weakness, his need of help, his panic-stricken heart cry to her. After all their drifting apart, their indifference to each other, their independence, he wants her again. He wants her as a helpmeet. He wants any courage she can give him, any wisdom. And she is glad to be wanted. She stretches out her hands to him. They clasp each other, and there is no longer a gulf beneath their feet; misfortune has built a bridge across the gulf which divided them. More than that, all the little meannesses of their life, all the petty selfishness of their days, all the little futile things over which they have wrangled and jangled are thrust on one side, and are seen in their right perspective. The things that matter, the only things that matter, are seen, perhaps, for the first time, clearly, in a bright light, now that they are face to face with stem realities. The shock throws them off their pedestals of conceit, of self-consciousness, of pretence. They stand on solid ground. The shock has broken the masks behind which they hid themselves. It has broken the hard crust about their hearts. It has shattered the idol which they worshipped, the idol of the great god Snob.