Many and many a woman, when she has been asked that question, the helpless question across the league-sundering gulf, has answered, aloud or dumbly, in a great yearning: “Love, a breath of passion, a touch of tenderness.” But in Lizzie that craving had never been deeper than the bloom on her cheek, and with the bloom it had perished. There are natures too common for the need of love, which is an instinct upwards of the soul. Instead, she answered querulously: “Why don’t you give me some money, and let me live away, somewhere?” “To do God knows what with yourself? Not I, unless you would like this sort of thing.” He took from among the circulars with which he was daily deluged a chance-sent prospectus of a Home, and put it before her. She glanced at it, and then crumpled it up fiercely, and threw it into the fire. “If you’re going to do that with me, you’d better look sharp, I can tell you,” she cried, trembling with sudden rage. “How long have you been making that little plan?” “It is no plan. You could only go in there of your own free will. My only plan is to shelter you here, and make life as happy for you as you will let me.” Lizzie sniffed contemptuously. “What did you send for that thing for?” “It came quite by chance.” “That’s a damn lie!” He bent forward, took her wrist, and looked at her sternly between the eyes, which lowered, abashed. “You know I never tell lies,” he said. “I tell you that you shall never go to such a place unless you wish to. But you shall stay in my house. And listen to me. If this goes on much longer, I shall have to engage a special attendant to live here, who will watch you like a cat. It will be a disgrace for you that you can well spare yourself. So be warned, and turn over a new leaf.” He rose, opened the morning paper, and skimmed through the news summary. Lizzie rubbed the wrist that he had held in an unconsciously tight grip, and then she began to whimper. But her tears had lost their effect upon Daniel. They came with maudlin frequency. At last she broke into a great spluttering sob. “I have been miserable ever since little Jacky died. I wish I had died with him.” The name of the child, dead three years before, touched the man’s heart. Of the two, perhaps he had felt the loss the more. Standing behind her, he laid a hand upon her shoulder, and said in a rough, tenderer tone-- “It was hard, my girl. But you are not the only one. Other women have been left desolate.” “And other women have wished they were dead. I expect most of ’em do. It’s beastly to be a woman.” “Well, you can’t help that,” he said grimly, resuming his newspaper. “You had better try and make the best of it.” The servant entered with his boots, which she placed on the hearthrug. When he had laced them up he stamped them into ease and looked more cheerful. A man’s moral tone always undergoes a subtle change with the donning of the morning boot or the evening slipper.