He was so downcast, and so penitent, and so ashamed of himself that Mrs. Norman met him halfway with a little rush of affection. "Why have you not been to see us all this time?" she said. He looked at her unsteadily; his whole manner betrayed an extreme embarrassment. "I've come," he said, "on purpose to explain. You mustn't think I don't appreciate your kindness, but the fact is my poor wife"--(She knew that woman was at the bottom of it!)--"is no longer--up to it." "What is the wretch up to, I should like to know?" thought Mrs. Norman. He held her with his melancholy, unsteady eyes. He seemed to be endeavoring to approach a subject intimately and yet abstrusely painful. "She finds the music--just at present--a little too much for her; the vibrations, you know. It's extraordinary how they affect her. She feels them--most unpleasantly--just here." Wilkinson laid two delicate fingers on the middle buttons of his waistcoat. Mrs. Norman was very kind to him. He was not very expert, poor fellow, in the fabrication of excuses. His look seemed to implore her pardon for the shifts he had been driven to; it appealed to her to help him out, to stand by him in his unspeakable situation. "I see," she said. He smiled, in charming gratitude to her for seeing it. That smile raised the devil in her. Why, after all, should she help him out? "And are you susceptible to music--in the same unpleasant way?" "Me? Oh, no--no. I like it; it gives me the very greatest pleasure." He stared at her in bewilderment and distress. "Then why," said Mrs. Norman sweetly, "if it gives you pleasure, should you cut yourself off from it?" "My dear Mrs. Norman, we have to cut ourselves off from a great many things--that give us pleasure. It can't be helped." She meditated. "Would it be any good," she said, "if I were to call on Mrs. Wilkinson?" Wilkinson looked grave. "It is most kind of you, but--just at present--I think it might be wiser not. She really, you know, isn't very fit." Mrs. Norman's silence neither accepted nor rejected the preposterous pretext. Wilkinson went on, helping himself out as best he could: "I can't talk about it; but I thought I ought to let you know. We've just got to give everything up." She held herself in. A terrible impulse was upon her to tell him straight out that she did not see it; that it was too bad; that there was no reason why she should be called upon to give everything up. "So, if we don't come," he said, "you'll understand? It's better--it really is better not." His voice moved her, and her heart cried to him, "Poor Peter!" "Yes," she said; "I understand." Of course she understood. Poor Peter! so it had come to that? "Can't you stay for tea?" she said. "No; I must be going back to her." He rose. His hand found hers. Its slight pressure told her that he gave and took the sadness of renunciation.