The winter it all happened, I was house-bound with rheumatism and had no active part in the drama. By day I was wheeled into the little upstairs study and sat with my mind on chloroform liniment and flannels, while my family and friends came to me, bearing gifts. Sometimes they sought the house to amuse me, sometimes to relieve their minds. Lucretia's burden was heaviest, so she was first. The November morning was raw and hideous. There were flakes of snow on my sister's venerable and shabby sealskin. She laid back the {66} veil on the edge of her little black bonnet,--she had been a widow for two years,--brushed the snow from her slightly worn shopping-bag and sat down in front of the fire, pulling nervously at her gloves. Lucretia is thin, sharp-featured ivory-skinned. Her aspect is both fatigued and ardent. Nothing that Mary and I were ever able to do for her lifted in the least from her own spirit the weight of her poverty-stricken, troublous, married life; and in her outer woman she persists in retaining that aspect of carefully brushed, valiantly borne adversity which is so trying to more prosperous and would-be-helpful kin. I made a few comments on the weather, which Lucretia did not answer. Realizing suddenly that she was agitated, I became silent, hoping that {67} the quiet, comfortable room, the snapping fire, and my own inertness, would act as a sedative. It did not occur to me that any really serious matter could be afoot. I had ceased to expect that life would offer any of us anything worse than occasional physical discomfort. Having regained her composure, my sister spoke without preface. "I am in great trouble, Benjamin. Desire has made up her mind to leave her husband, and nothing I say has the slightest effect." "Good Heavens! Lucretia! What do you mean?" "Just what I say. Desire declares she isn't satisfied as Arnold Ackroyd's wife. So she proposes to put an end to the relation. I judge she intends, later, to contract another marriage, though she is n't disposed to lay stress on that point." {68} I continued to look at Lucretia wide-eyed, and possibly wide-mouthed. The things she was saying were so preposterous, so incredible, that I could not accept them. It was as if I had received a message that the full moon was not "satisfied" to climb the evening sky. "Lord! Lord! Little Desire!" I muttered. "She is a woman of thirty, Benjamin." "What does she say?" I exploded. "What is wrong in her married life? People don't do these things causelessly--not the people we are or know." "She says a great deal," returned her mother dryly. "Did you ever know a Withacre to be lacking in words, Benjamin? Desire is very fluent. I might say she is eloquent." {69} "But what does it all amount to, anyhow?" I demanded impatiently. Dazed though I was, my consciousness of being the head of the family was returning.