“You think I haven’t been watching you all these years. I have watched you so that I know your thoughts behind those brooding eyes, Clare. I know all that you have been thinking and suffering, so that sometimes you hate me, so that my very presence here in the room with you makes you wish to cry out, to shriek, because I am your mother-in-law, and the mother of your husband. The husband always loves his mother best, and the wife always knows it. That is the eternal tragedy of the mother-in-law. Because she is hated by the wife of her son, and is an intruder in her home. I know that because I too suffered from a mother-in-law. Do you think I would stay here an hour unless I was forced to stay, for a shelter above my old head, for some home in which I wait to die? But while I wait I watch... and I know that you have reached a dangerous stage in a woman’s life, when she may do any rash thing. Clare, I pray every night that you may pass that stage in life without doing anything--rash. This time always comes in marriage, it comes----” “In the Eighth Year?” asked Clare eagerly. “Somewhere about then.” “Ah! I thought so.” “It came to me, my dear.” “And did _you_ do anything rash?” Mrs. Heywood hesitated a moment before replying. “I gave birth to Herbert,” she said. “Good Heavens!” said Clare. “It saved me from breaking----” “Windows, mother?” “No, my own and my husband’s heart,” said Mrs. Heywood. “Well, I will go and speak to Mollie again. Goodness knows how we shall get coffee to-night.” She went out of the room with her head shaking a little after this scene of emotion. Clare spoke to herself aloud. She had her hands up to her throat. “I don’t want coffee to-night. I want stronger drink. I want to get drunk with liberty of life.” Suddenly there was a noise at the window and the woman looked up, startled, and cried, “Who is there?” Gerald Bradshaw appeared at the open French window leading on to the balcony, and he spoke through the window. “It is I, Clare? Are you alone?” Clare had risen from her chair at the sound of his voice, and her face became very pale. “Gerald... How did you come there?” Gerald Bradshaw laughed in his lighthearted way. “I stepped over the bar that divides our balconies. It was quite easy. It was as easy as it will be to cross the bar that divides you and me, Clare.” Clare spoke in a frightened voice. “Why do you come here, at this hour?” “Why do I ever come?” asked Gerald Bradshaw. “I don’t know.” “It’s because I want you. I want you badly to-night, Clare. I can’t wait for you any longer.” Clare spoke pleadingly. “Gerald... go away... it’s so dangerous... I daren’t listen to you.” “I want you to listen,” said Gerald Bradshaw. “Go away... I implore you to go away.” He laughed at her. He seemed very much amused. “Not before I have said what I want to say.” “Say it quickly,” said Clare. “Quickly!”