“Tell me something funny, Dick, or I shall howl in a few seconds. Don’t be serious. Be idiotic. Have the carrots and turnips decided which take precedence yet? Is her ladyship, the onion, weeping upon the cabbage’s lordly bosom? Are the babies talking philosophy over their bottles? For Heaven’s sake, Dick, be idiotic, and make me laugh.” “I think it would do you more good to cry.” “Oh, no, no: I hate to cry. Do help me not to.” But Dick understood the relief it was to a woman to have it out, and he just sat down in Dudley’s big arm chair, and reached the favourite footstool for Hal. “Sit on the stool of confessional, and I’ll make you laugh later on. If you don’t cry now, you will when I’ve gone.” Hal sat on the footstool, and leaning against his knee, cried quietly for several minutes. He played with an unruly strand of hair until she dried her eyes, and then said: “When we were kids, you always told me when things went wrong with you. Tell me all about it now.” “I left off being a kid about a month ago. I’m ancient history now”; and she tried to smile through her tears. “Why?” “Oh, just because—” and then her voice broke suddenly. “I suppose Sir Edwin was in love with you?” She did not reply. “And he was obliged to marry the other woman for the money.” He was thoughtful for some moments, and then added: “All the same, when a man like that goes so far as to love a woman, which must be a pretty novel experience for him, he doesn’t let her go lightly. He won’t let you go lightly, Hal.” “I shall not see him again.” “Has it come to that already?” “It had to. There was no other course.” “It sounds rather sudden and drastic.” He watched her keenly. “A man like that would try to get both of you. Did he try, Hal?” The hot blood rushed to her face, and she turned her head away. “Well, he would think it the obvious, sensible course, I suppose, and perhaps a good many women would, too. What did you think, Hal?” “I didn’t think. I hurried away. I shall not see him any more at all.” He looked at her with a light in his eyes. “Bravo,” he said; and there was a low thrill in his voice. “He’ll think the world more of you, Hal.” “I’m not sure; anyhow, it doesn’t help very much.” “Then you wanted to go.” She stared into the fire and was silent. “I see,” he said simply. “You are one of the women who would have dared, only… of course I knew you wouldn’t, Hal. And, if you had, I shouldn’t have been the one to blame you.” “Yes,” she told him, still staring at the fire. “I could have dared under some circumstance. But not these. Never under pretty, ignoble ones. I think that all makes it worse. There were two Sir Edwins. There was one I knew, and another the world knew. It was the other that triumphed. Mine will never come back. It is all finished.” She bowed her head down on her arms. “Oh, Dick,” she said. “I shall miss him badly.”