After all, it was natural enough to find that he was living there. He had always hated any dependence on other people’s plans and moods; she remembered how irritably he had spoken of his servitude as Mr. Maclew’s secretary, light as the yoke must be. And it was like him, since he was settled in Baltimore, to have returned to his parents. There was something in him--on the side she had always groped for, and occasionally known in happy glimpses--that would make him dislike to live in luxury in the same town in which his father and mother were struggling on the scant income his own follies had reduced them too. He would probably never relate cause and effect, or be much troubled if he did; he would merely say to himself: “It would be beastly wallowing in things here, when it’s such hard sledding for the old people”--in the same tone in which he used to say to Kate, on their lazy Riviera Sundays: “If I were at home now I’d be getting ready to take the old lady to church. I always go with her.” And no doubt he did. He loved his parents tenderly whenever they were near enough to be loved. There was a step in the passage. She turned with a start and he came in. At sight of her he closed the door quickly. He was very pale. “Kate!” he said, stopping on the threshold. She had been standing in the window, and she remained there, the width of the room between them. She was silenced by the curious deep shock of remembrance that his actual presence always gave her, and began to tremble lest it should weaken her resolve. “Didn’t you expect me?” she finally said. He looked at her as if he hardly saw her. “Yes; I suppose I did,” he answered at length in a slow dragging voice. “I was going to write; to ask when I could see you.” As he stood there he seemed like some one snatched out of a trance. To her surprise she felt him singularly in her power. Their parts were reversed for the first time, and she said to herself: “I must act quickly, before he can collect himself.” Aloud she asked: “What have you got to say?” “To say--” he began; and then, suddenly, with a quick change of voice, and moving toward her with outstretched hands: “For God’s sake don’t take that tone. It’s bad enough....”