"Yes," he said, "it's all altered. There isn't a blessed thing, not a chair, or a footstool, or a candlestick, that isn't in some place where it wasn't. And the room doesn't look a bit better, and you won't be a bit better pleased with it to-morrow." He put on his coat and sat down beside her. "See here," said he, "you don't want me really to believe that that's where the trouble is?" "The trouble?" "Yes, Nancy, the trouble. Do you think I'm such a fool that I don't see it? It's been coming on a long time. I know you're not happy. You're not satisfied with things as they are. As they are, you know, there's a sort of incompleteness, something wanting, isn't there?" She sighed. "It's you who are putting it that way, not I." "Of course I'm putting it that way. How am I to put it any other way? Let me think now--well--of course I know perfectly well that it's not a piano, or a reading-stand, or a sofa that you want, any more than I do. We want the same thing, sweetheart." She smiled sadly. "Do we? I should have said the trouble is that we don't want the same thing, and never did." "I don't understand you." "Nor I you. You think I'm always wanting something. What is it that you think I want?" "Well--do you remember Westleydale?" She drew back. "Westleydale? What has put that into your head?" He grew desperate under her evasions, and plunged into his theme. "Well, that jolly baby we saw there--in the wood--you looked so happy when you grabbed it, and I thought, perhaps--" "There's no use talking about that," said she. "I don't like it." "All right--only--it's still a little soon, you know, isn't it, to give it up?" "You're quite mistaken," she said coldly. "It isn't that. It never has been. If I want anything, Walter, that you haven't given me, it's something that you cannot give me. I've long ago made up my mind to that." "But why make up your mind to anything? How do you know I can't give it you--whatever it is--if you won't tell me anything about it? What _do_ you want, dear?" "Ah, my dear, I want nothing, except not to have to feel like this." "What do you feel like?" "Like what I am. A stranger in my husband's house." "And is that my fault?" he asked gently. "It is not mine. But there it is. I feel sometimes as if I'd never been married to you. That's why you must never talk to me as you did just now." "Good God, what a thing to say!" He hid his face in his hands. The pain she had inflicted would have been unbearable but for the light that was in him. He rose to leave her. But before he left, he took one long, scrutinising look at her. It struck him that she was not, at the moment, entirely responsible for her utterances. And again his light helped him. "Look here," said he, "I don't think you're feeling very well. This isn't exactly a joyous life for you." "I want no other," said she.