Dr. Arklow’s study was full of books, of signed photographs of Church dignitaries, of more English cathedrals, of worn leather armchairs and scattered pipes and tobacco-pouches. The Rector himself, on the hearth, loomed before her at once bland and formidable. He had guessed, of course, that she had come to talk about the date and hour of the wedding, and all the formulas incidental to such visits fell from his large benevolent lips. The visit really passed off more easily than she had expected, and she was on her feet again and feeling him behind her like a gentle trade-wind accustomed to waft a succession of visitors to the door, when she stopped abruptly and faced him. “Dr. Arklow--” He waited benevolently. “There’s something else--a case I’ve always wanted to put to you....” “Dear Mrs. Clephane--do put it now.” He was waving her back into her armchair; but she stood before him, unconscious of the gesture. “It’s about a friend of mine--” “Yes: a friend? Do sit down.” She sat down, still unaware of her movements or his. “A most unhappy woman.... I told her I would ask ... ask what could be done.... She had an idea that you could tell her....” He bowed expectantly. Her parched lips brought out: “Of course it’s confidential,” and his gesture replied that communications, in that room, were always held to be so. “Whatever I can do--” he added. “Yes. My friend thought--her position is really desperate.” She stopped, her voice failing her; then the words came forth in panting jerks. “She was most unhappily married ... things went against her--everything did. She tried ... tried her best.... Then she met him ... it was too difficult.... He was her lover; only for a short time. After that her life was perfectly ... was all it should be. She never saw him--oh, for years. Now her daughter wants to marry him....” “Marry him? _The same man?_” The Rector’s voice swelled above her like a wave; his presence towered, blurred and gigantic. She felt the tears in her throat; but again she was seized by the besetting desire that her secret should not be guessed, and a desperate effort at self-control drove the tears back and cleared her voice. Dr. Arklow still loomed and brooded. “And the man--” A slow flush of agony rose to her forehead; but she remembered that she was seated with her back to the light, and took courage. “He--he is determined.” She paused, and then went on: “It’s too horrible. But at first he didn’t know ... when he first met the girl. Neither of them knew. And when he found out--” “Yes?” “Then--it was too late, he said. The girl doesn’t know even now; she doesn’t dream; and she’s grown to care--care desperately.” “That’s his defence?” Her voice failed her again, and she signed her assent. There was another long pause. She sat motionless, looking down at her own interlocked hands. She felt that Dr. Arklow was uneasily pacing the hearth-rug; at last she was aware that he was once more standing before her.