"It isn't too much?" George asked affectionately. "Too much? It's the only thing that will save my reason, I think," Warren answered, and after that George said no more. The two men lunched together, and dined together, five times a week, with a curious change from old times: it was Warren who listened, and George who did the talking now. They talked of cases chiefly, for Warren was working day and night, and thought of little else than his work; but once or twice, as September waned, and October moved toward its close, there burst from him an occasional inquiry as to his wife. "Will she ever forgive me, George?" Warren asked one cool autumn dawning when the two men were walking away from the hospital under the fading stars. Warren had commenced an operation just before midnight, it was only concluded now, and George, who had remained beside him for sheer admiration of his daring and his skill, had suggested that they walk for a while, and shake off the atmosphere of ether and of pain. "It's a time like this I miss her," Warren said. "I took it all for granted, then. But after such a night as this, when I would go home in those first years, and creep into bed, she was never too sleepy to rouse and ask me how the case went, she never failed to see that the house was quiet the next morning, and she'd bring in my tray herself--Lord, a woman like that, waiting on me!" George shook his head but did not speak. They walked an echoing block or two in silence. "George, I need my wife," Warren said then. "There isn't an hour of my life that some phase of our life together doesn't come back to me and wring my heart. I don't want anything else--our sons, our fireside, our interests together. I've heard her voice ever since. And I'm changed, George, not in what I always believed, because I know right from wrong, and always have, but I don't believe in myself any more. I want my kids to be taught laws--not their own laws. I want to go on my knees to my girl---" His voice thickened suddenly, and they walked on with no attempt on either side to end the silence for a long time. The city streets were wet from a rain, but day was breaking in hopeful pearl and rose. "I can say this," said George at last: "I believe that she needs you as much as you do her. But Rachael's proud--" "Ah, yes, she's that!" Warren said eagerly as he paused. "And Warren, she has been dragged through the muck during the last few years," George resumed in a mildly expostulatory tone. "Oh, I know it!" Warren answered, stricken. "She hates coarseness," pursued George, "she hates weakness. I believe that if ever a divorce was justified in this world, hers was. But to have you come back at her, to have Magsie Clay break in on her, and begin to yap breezily about divorce, and how prevalent it is, and what a solution it is, why, of course it was enough to break her heart!" "Don't!" Warren said thickly, quickening his pace, as if to walk away from his own insufferable thoughts.