“After asking your advice,” she said. “Exactly.” “I don’t know why I broke that window. Except I think that I wanted to get away.” “But why didn’t you come to me?” “I didn’t know where you were. And besides—I didn’t somehow want to come to you.” “But wasn’t it wretched in prison? Wasn’t it miserably cold? I used to think of you of nights in some wretched ill-aired cell.... You....” “It _was_ cold,” she admitted. “But it was very good for me. It was quiet. The first few days seemed endless; then they began to go by quickly. Quite quickly at last. And I came to think. In the day there was a little stool where one sat. I used to sit on that and brood and try to think things out—all sorts of things I’ve never had the chance to think about before.” “Yes,” said Mr. Brumley. “All this,” she said. “And it has brought you back here!” he said, with something of the tone of one who has a right to enquire, with some flavour too of reproach. “You see,” she said after a little pause, “during that time it was possible to come to understandings. Neither I nor my husband had understood the other. In that interval it was possible—to explain. “Yes. You see, Mr. Brumley, we—we both misunderstood. It was just because of that and because I had no one who seemed able to advise me that I turned to you. A novelist always seems so wise in these things. He seems to know so many lives. One can talk to you as one can scarcely talk to anyone; you are a sort of doctor—in these matters. And it was necessary—that my husband should realize that I had grown up and that I should have time to think just how one’s duty and one’s—freedom have to be fitted together.... And my husband is ill. He has been ill, rather short of breath—the doctor thinks it is asthma—for some time, and all the agitation of this business has upset him and made him worse. He is upstairs now—asleep. Of course if I had thought I should make him ill I could never have done any of this. But it’s done now and here I am, Mr. Brumley, back in my place. With all sorts of things changed. Put right....” “I see,” said Mr. Brumley stupidly. Her speech was like the falling of an opaque curtain upon some romantic spectacle. She stood there, almost defensively behind her chair as she made it. There was a quality of premeditation in her words, yet something in her voice and bearing made him feel that she knew just how it covered up and extinguished his dreams and impulses. He heard her out and then suddenly his spirit rebelled against her decision. “No!” he cried. She waited for him to go on.