Lady Harman made a little gesture as though she would put this sound aside. “Love,” she said at last. “It comes to some people. It happens. It happens to young people.... But when one is married——” Her voice fell almost to a whisper. “One must not think of it,” she said. “One must think of one’s husband and one’s duty. Life cannot begin again, Mr. Brumley.” The taps were repeated, a little more urgently. “That is my husband,” she said. She hesitated through a little pause. “Mr. Brumley,” she said, “I want friendship so badly, I want some one to be my friend. I don’t want to think of things—disturbing things—things I have lost—things that are spoilt. _That_—that which you spoke of; what has it to do with me?” She interrupted him as he was about to speak. “Be my friend. Don’t talk to me of impossible things. Love! Mr. Brumley, what has a married woman to do with love? I never think of it. I never read of it. I want to do my duty. I want to do my duty by him and by my children and by all the people I am bound to. I want to help people, weak people, people who suffer. I want to help him to help them. I want to stop being an idle, useless, spending woman....” She made a little gesture of appeal with her hands. “Oh!” he sighed, and then, “You know if I can help you——Rather than distress you——” Her manner changed. It became confidential and urgent. “Mr. Brumley,” she said, “I must go up to my husband. He will be impatient. And when I tell him you are here he will want to see you.... You will come up and see him?” Mr. Brumley sought to convey the struggle within him by his pose. “I will do what you wish, Lady Harman,” he said, with an almost theatrical sigh. He closed the door after her and was alone in his former study once more. He walked slowly to his old writing-desk and sat down in his familiar seat. Presently he heard her footfalls across the room above. Mr. Brumley’s mind under the stress of the unfamiliar and the unexpected was now lapsing rapidly towards the theatrical. “My _God_!” said Mr. Brumley. He addressed that friendly memorable room in tones that mingled amazement and wrong. “He is her husband!” he said, and then: “The power of words!” ... §7