"Go where?" It was like Mrs. Clayhanger to ask a question to which she knew the answer. Her ardent eyes, set a little too close together in the thin, lined, nervous face, burned upon him challengingly. "I told you! I have to report at Headquarters before noon." "But you don't mean to say you're going to leave your wife like this! She's very ill." "I'm bound to leave her." "But you can't leave her." The Alderman said: "The boy's quite right. If he's got to report he's got to report." "And supposing she was dying?" "Now, missis, we needn't suppose that. She isn't." "It would be just the same if she was," Mrs. Clayhanger retorted bitterly. "I don't know what men are coming to. But I know this--all husbands are selfish. They probably don't know it, but they are." She wept angrily. "Don't you understand I'm in the machine now, mater?" said George resentfully as he left the room. In the bedroom Lois lay on her back, pale, perspiring, moaning. He kissed her, glanced at the doctor for instructions, and departed. Lois was not in a condition to talk, and the doctor wished her not to speak. Then George went to the kitchen and took leave of the children, and incidentally of the servants. The nurse was arriving as he re-entered the dining-room; he had seized his cap in the hall and put it on. "Better give me an address," said the Alderman. "You might wire during the day," George said, scribbling on a loose leaf from his pocket-book, which he had to search for in unfamiliar pockets. "The idea had occurred to me," the Alderman smiled. "Au revoir, mater." "But you've got plenty of time!" she protested. "I know," said he. "I'm not going to be late. I haven't the slightest notion where Headquarters are, and supposing the taxi had a break-down!" He divined from the way in which she kissed him good-bye that she was excessively proud of him. "Mater," he said, "I see you're still a girl." As he was leaving, Mr. Clayhanger halted him. "You said something in your last letter about storing the furniture, didn't you? Have ye made any inquiries?" "No. But I've told Orgreave. You might look into that, because--well, you'll see." From the hall he glanced into the dining-room and up the stairs. The furniture that filled the house had been new ten years earlier; it had been anybody's furniture. The passage of ten years, marvellously swift, had given character to the furniture, charged it with associations, scarred it with the history of a family--his family, individualized it, humanized it. It was no longer anybody's furniture. With a pang he pictured it numbered and crowded into a warehouse, forlorn, thick with dust, tragic, exiled from men and women.