Majendie, too, felt himself drawn in and folded in the gloom cast by his wife's protesting presence. The shadow of it wrapped them even after Anne had left the dining-room, as though her indignant spirit had remained behind to preserve her protest. Gorst had changed his oppression for a nervous restlessness intolerable to Majendie. "My dear fellow," he said, "what is the matter with you?" "How should I know?" said Gorst with a spurt of ill-temper. "I'm not a nerve specialist." Majendie looked at him attentively. "I say, _you_ mustn't go in for nerves, you know; you can't afford it." "My dear Walter, I can't afford anything, if it comes to that." He paused with an obscure air of injury and foreboding. "Not even, it seems, the most innocent amusements. At the rate," he added, "I have to pay for them." Again he brooded, while Majendie wondered at him, in brotherly anxiety. "I suppose," Gorst said suddenly, "I can go up and see Edith, can't I?" He spoke as if he doubted, whether, in the wreck of his world, with all his "innocent amusements," that supreme consolation would be still open to him. "Of course you can," said Majendie. "It's the best thing you can do. I told her you were coming." "Thanks," said Gorst, checking the alacrity with which he rose to go to Edith. Oh yes, he knew it was the best thing he could do. Edith's voice called gladly to him as he tapped at her door. He entered noiselessly, wearing the wondering and expectant look with which a new worshipper enters a holy place. Perpetual backslidings kept poor Gorst's worship perpetually new. Colour came slowly back into Edith's face and a tender light into her eyes, as if from the springing of some deep untroubled well of life. She seemed more than ever a creature of imperial vitality, bound by some cruel enchantment to her couch. She held out her hands to him; and he raised them to his lips and kissed her fingers lightly. "It's weeks since I've seen you," said she. "Months, isn't it?" said he. "Weeks, three weeks, by the calendar." "I say--tell me--I _am_ to come and see you, just the same?" "Just the same? Why, what's different?" "Oh, I don't know. But it seems to me, when a man's married, it's bound to make a difference." Edith's colour mounted; she made an effort to control the trembling of her mouth, the soft woman's mouth where all that was bodily in her love still lingered. But the sweetness deepened in her eyes, which were the dwelling-place of the immortal, immaterial power. They met Gorst's eyes steadily, laying on his restlessness their peace. "Are you going to be married, Charlie?" said she, and smiled bravely. He laughed. "Oh, Lord, no; not I." "Who is, then?" "Walter, of course. I mean he is married, don't you know." "Yes, and is there any difference in him to you?" "In him? Oh, rather not." "In whom, then?"