“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “Just wanted to see Adelaide.” “Adelaide has a headache.” Life was taking so many wrong turnings that Mr. Lanley had grown apprehensive. He suddenly remembered how many headaches Adelaide had had just before he knew of her troubles with Severance. “A headache?” he said nervously. “Nothing serious.” Vincent looked more closely at his father-in-law. “You yourself don’t look just the thing, sir.” Mr. Lanley sat down more limply than was his custom. “I’m getting to an age,” he said, “when I can’t stand scenes. We had something of a scene here yesterday afternoon. God bless my soul! though, I believe Adelaide told me not to mention it to you.” “Adelaide is very considerate,” replied her husband. His extreme susceptibility to sorrow made Mr. Lanley notice a tone which ordinarily would have escaped him, and he looked up so sharply that Farron was forced to add quickly: “But you haven’t made a break. I know about what took place.” The egotism of suffering, the distorted vision of a sleepless night, made Mr. Lanley blurt out suddenly: “I want to ask you, Vincent, do you think I could have done anything different?” Now, none of the accounts which Farron had received had made any mention of Mr. Lanley’s part in the proceedings at all, and so he paused a moment, and in that pause Mr. Lanley went on: “It’s a difficult position--before a boy’s mother. There isn’t anything against him, of course. One’s reasons for not wanting the marriage do sound a little snobbish when one says them--right out. In fact, I suppose they are snobbish. Do you find it hard to get away from early prejudices, Vincent? I do. I think Adelaide is quite right; and yet the boy is a nice boy. What do you think of him?” “I have taken him into my office.” Mr. Lanley was startled by a courage so far beyond his own. “But,” he asked, “did you consult Adelaide?” Farron shook his head. “But, Vincent, was that quite loyal?” A change in Farron’s expression made Mr. Lanley turn his head, and he saw that Adelaide had come into the room. Her appearance bore out the legend of her headache: she looked like a garden after an early frost. But perhaps the most terrifying thing about her aspect was her complete indifference to it. A recollection suddenly came to Mr. Lanley of a railway accident that he and Adelaide had been in. He had seen her stepping toward him through the debris, buttoning her gloves. She was far beyond such considerations now. She had come to put her very life to the test. There was one hope, there was one way in which Vincent could rehabilitate himself, and that was by showing himself victor in the hardest of all struggles, the personal struggle with her. That would be hard, because she would make it so, if she perished in the attempt.