An hour after the meal she begged permission to retire to her room. The effort to talk had become impossible; she was at the end of her strength, and could hold up no longer. When Alma came down again, she stood for a minute before the fire, smiling and silent. Harvey had picked up a newspaper; he said nothing. 'How very nice she is!' fell at length from Mrs. Rolfe's lips. 'Astonishingly altered,' was her husband's murmured reply. 'Indeed? In what way?' 'Looks so wretchedly ill, for one thing.' 'We must take her about. What do you think of doing tomorrow?' By feminine device of indirect question, Alma obtained some understanding of the change that had come upon Mrs. Abbott during the past three years. Harvey's disclosures did not violate the reticence imposed upon him by that hour in which he had beheld a woman's remorseful anguish; he spoke only of such things as were manifest to everyone who had known Mary Abbott before her husband's death; of her social pleasures, her intellectual ambitions, suddenly overwhelmed by a great sorrow. 'I suppose she ought to be doing much better things than teaching children,' said Alma. 'Better things?' repeated Harvey, musing. 'I don't know. It all depends how you regard it.' 'Is she very clever?' 'Not appallingly,' he answered, with a laugh. 'It's very possible she is doing just what she ought to be--neither more nor less. Her health seems to be the weak point.' 'Do you think she has enough to live upon?' Harvey knitted his brows and looked uneasy. 'I hope so. Of course it must be a very small income; but I dare say those friends of hers at Gunnersbury make life a little easier.' 'I feel quite sorry for her,' said Alma, with cheerfulness. 'I hadn't realised her position. We must make her stay as long as she can. Yes, if it's fine again, we might drive to Tre'r Caeri. That would interest her, no doubt. She likes history, doesn't she?--the same things that you are fond of.'