"Did you ever notice the hands in that portrait?" David glanced at the portrait without noticing it, and went his way. "Since a man knows nothing else was created for him, he feels his loneliness without her so much more deeply. They ought to be very good and true to each other--a man and a woman--since they two are alone in the universe." He gulped down his words and stood up, trembling. "I must be going," he said, without even looking at Gabriella, and went out into the hall for his coat. "Bring it in here." she called. "It is cold out there." She watched how careless he was about making himself snug for his benumbing walk. He had a woollen comforter which he left loosely tied about his neck. "Tie it closer," she commanded. "You had a cold last night, and it is worse tonight. Tuck it in close about your neck." David made the attempt. He was not thinking. "This way!" And Gabriella showed him by using her fingers around her own neck and collar. He tried again and failed, standing before her with a mingling of embarrassment and stubborn determination. "That will never do!" she cried with genuine concern. She took hold of the comforter by the ends and drew the knot up close to his throat, he lifting his head to receive it as it came. Then David with his eyes on the ceiling felt his coat collar turned up and her soft warm fingers tucking the comforter in around his neck. When he looked down, she was standing over by the fireplace. "Good night," she said positively, with a quick gesture of dismissal as she saw the look in his eyes. Each of the million million men who made up the past of David, that moment reached a hand out of the distance and pushed him forward. But of them all there was none so helpless with modesty,--so in need of hiding from every eye,--even his own,--the sacred annals of that moment. He was standing by the table on which burned the candles. He bent down quickly and blew them out and went over to her by the dim firelight. XIX All high happiness has in it some element of love; all love contains a desire for peace. One immediate effect of new happiness, new love, is to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its difficulties, heal its breaches, forgive its wrongs. We think most hopefully of distressing things which may still be remedied, most regretfully of others that have passed beyond our reach and will. It was between ten and eleven o'clock of the next day--Sunday. David's cold had become worse. He had turned over necessary work to the negro man and stayed quietly in his room since the silent breakfast Two or three books chosen carelessly out of the trunk lay on his table before the fire: interest had gone out of them this day. With his face red and swollen, he was sitting beside this table with one hand loosely covering the forgotten books, his eyes turned to the window, but looking upon distant inward scenes.