Her voice fell nearly to a whisper. “Mr. Brumley,” she said, “when I came back to him—you know he was in bed here—instead of scolding me—he _cried_. He cried like a vexed child. He put his face into the pillow—just misery.... I’d never seen him cry—at least only once—long ago....” Mr. Brumley looked at her flushed and tender face and it seemed to him that indeed he could die for her quite easily. “I saw how hard I had been,” she said. “In prison I’d thought of that, I’d thought women mustn’t be hard, whatever happens to them. And when I saw him like that I knew at once how true that was.... He begged me to be a good wife to him. No!—he just said, ‘Be a wife to me,’ not even a good wife—and then he cried....” For a moment or so Mr. Brumley didn’t respond. “I see,” he said at last. “Yes.” “And there were the children—such helpless little things. In the prison I worried about them. I thought of things for them. I’ve come to feel—they are left too much to nurses and strangers.... And then you see he has agreed to nearly everything I had wanted. It wasn’t only the personal things—I was anxious about those silly girls—the strikers. I didn’t want them to be badly treated. It distressed me to think of them. I don’t think you know how it distressed me. And he—he gave way upon all that. He says I may talk to him about the business, about the way we do our business—the kindness of it I mean. And this is why I am back here. Where else _could_ I be?” “No,” said Mr. Brumley still with the utmost reluctance. “I see. Only——” He paused downcast and she waited for him to speak. “Only it isn’t what I expected, Lady Harman. I didn’t think that matters could be settled by such arrangements. It’s sane, I know, it’s comfortable and kindly. But I thought—Oh! I thought of different things, quite different things from all this. I thought of you who are so beautiful caught in a loveless passionless world. I thought of the things there might be for you, the beautiful and wonderful things of which you are deprived.... Never mind what I thought! Never mind! You’ve made your choice. But I thought that you didn’t love, that you couldn’t love—this man. It seemed to me that you felt too—that to live as you are doing—with him—was a profanity. Something—I’d give everything I have, everything I am, to save you from. Because—because I care.... I misunderstood you. I suppose you can—do what you are doing.” He jumped to his feet as he spoke and walked three paces away and turned to utter his last sentences. She too stood up. “Mr. Brumley,” she said weakly, “I don’t understand. What do you mean? I have to do what I am doing. He—he is my husband.” He made a gesture of impatience. “Do you understand nothing of _love_?” he cried. She pressed her lips together and remained still and silent, dark against the casement window. There came a sound of tapping from the room above. Three taps and again three taps.