His own marriage had fallen far short of his expectations. He knew that he had not won Prudence's love. Since the night of their quarrel, when she had confessed to loving Steele, the hope which he had fostered patiently through the disappointing years, that he might yet win it, had died utterly. But, oddly, that night with its ugly memories, its noisy wrangling and bitter recrimination, had revealed with a certainty beyond question that his own love for her, which he had believed was faded to insignificance, was still very much alive. He wanted her very earnestly. He missed her, missed her bright presence about the house, her youthful prettiness, her coming and going in her independent search for pleasure outside his home. She had brought a glimpse of the unexpected, the delightful irrelevance of pleasant trivial things, into the prosaic setting of everyday life which had caught him away insensibly from the dulness and the worries of his stupendous business undertakings, and brightened his home, very much, he often thought, as the swift appearance of the sun would brighten the prospect on a grey day. He had not realised, until she left him, how much he appreciated these things. It was some return anyway, if not the most adequate he could have desired, for the love he felt for her. He had made no particular concession, had not even attempted to adapt himself to her view of life. He had demanded a great deal of her and given little in return. These thoughts floated through his mind as he drove up the hill to the house. He was seeing their case altogether differently from the days when he had taken his young wife home and quarrelled with her seriously over such unimportant matters as ventilation and the direction of household affairs. He was, he realised now, directly responsible for the beginning of the breach which had widened yearly and ended in an open rupture. It remained for him to make amends for those earlier mistakes which had broken up the peace of his home. He had led too self-centred a life. In future he would evince greater interest in his wife's doings, show more sympathy with her aims. After all, a wife needs something more from her husband than board and lodging; she has a right to his confidence and companionship. He had never attempted to make a companion of her. He had treated her always as a child, a child to be spoilt and petted, until she refused the petting. Lately he had treated her with greater indifference, but still as a child, an unreasonable child towards whom kindness was misdirected. It was not surprising that the woman in her had rebelled. It came as an agreeable surprise to Mr Morgan when he reached Court Heatherleigh in the grey dawn, weary and cold after his long journey, to be met on the doorstep by Prudence, who was the only member of the household awake at that hour.