"Yes, I must go to her." "Of course, of course, and without delay. Well, I'll take care of the little chap." "I know you will, better than I could." David lifted his eyes to his old friend's, then turned them away. "I feel him to be a sacred trust." Again he paused. "It--would take a--long time to go to her first?" "To--her?" For the instant the old man had forgotten Cassandra. Not so David. "My wife. It will be desperately hard--for her." "Yes, yes. But your uncle, you know, died of grief, and your m--mother--" "I know--so the lawyer said. Now at last we'll read mother's letter. He wondered, I suppose, that I didn't look at it when he gave it to me, but I felt conscience-stricken. I've been so filled with my life down there--the peace, the blessed peace and happiness--that I have neglected her--my own mother. I couldn't open and read it with that man's eyes on me. No, no. Stay here, I beg of you, stay. You are different. I want you." He opened his mother's letter and slowly read it, then passed it to his friend and, rising, walked to the window and stood gazing down into the square. Autumn leaves were being tossed and swirled in dancing flights, like flocks of brown and yellow birds along the street. The sky was overcast, with thin hurrying clouds, and the feeling of autumn was in the air, but David's eyes were blurred, and he saw nothing before him. The doctor's voice broke the silence with sudden impulse. "In this she speaks as if she knew nothing about your marriage." "I told you I had neglected her," cried David, contritely. "But, m--man alive! why--why in the name of all the gods--" "All England is filled with fools," cried the younger man, desperately. "I could never in the world make them understand me or my motives. I gave it up long ago. I've not told my mother, to save her from a needless sorrow that would be inflicted on her by her friends. They would all flock to her and pester her with their outcry of 'How very extraordinary!' I can hear them and see them now. I tell you, if a man steps out of the beaten track over there--if he attempts to order his own life, marry to please himself, or cut his coat after any pattern other than the ordinary conventional lines,--even the boys on the street will fling stones at him. Her patronizing friends would, at the very least, politely raise their eyebrows. She is proud and sensitive, and any fling at her sons is a blow to her." "But what--" "I say I couldn't tell her. I tell you I have been drinking from the cup of happiness. I have drained it to the last drop. My wife is mine. She does not belong to those people over there, to be talked over, and dined over, and all her beauty and fineness overlooked through their monocles--brutes! My mountain flower in her homespun dress--only poets could understand and appreciate her." "B--but what were you going to do about it?"