Their meeting was somewhat constrained. He had not expected to see her and was at a loss for words. They faced one another a little self-consciously in the big empty hall; and then Edward Morgan bent down and kissed his wife, with an air of uncertainty as to how his caress would be received. Prudence flushed warmly, and, to cover her embarrassment, became actively helpful in disentangling him from his numerous wrappings. "I didn't expect to see any one at this hour," he said, and struggled out of his heavy coat and hung it on a peg. Then he turned to her with quick unexpectedness. "Thank you for the kindly thought, dear. It is good to find a welcome awaiting one at the end of a journey." "You shouldn't have travelled by the night train," she said. "You know you hate it." "It saved time," he explained. Arrangements had been made for an early breakfast for the traveller. Prudence led him into the breakfast-room, and poured out the hot coffee which she had made. They did not talk much. Each was conscious of the strain of this meeting; and the remarks which passed between them were impersonal and confined to the business of the moment. On finishing his meal Mr Morgan expressed a desire to go to bed; he thought he could sleep for a couple of hours. Prudence accompanied him upstairs, and parted from him outside his bedroom door with a smile that was friendlier and more ready than any she had given him of late. He was puzzled. He could not understand her. It was as though they had gone back to the days of the courtship, when he had been diffident and awkward and had found her shy and a little difficult, but kind always. The wife who had left him in anger, who for years, it seemed to him on looking back upon the past, had felt entirely indifferent towards him, ceased to be a vivid memory with him; her place in his thoughts was blotted out by the sunshine of Prudence's smile. He did not understand what had worked this change in her, but he realised that in some subtle way she was changed. She had grown suddenly older, more self-contained and womanly. She was as a person who, after walking aimlessly for a long while, strikes the right road unexpectedly, and proceeds more surely, with a definite purpose in view. Still puzzling over these things, he got into bed and soon forgot his perplexities and fatigue in sleep.