th her hands to him, and with an inspiration as sudden he
took them and kissed them. When he had done so he was ashamed of his
temerity; he looked up to meet in her dark eyes the scared shyness of a
fallow deer. She suddenly remembered to withdraw her hands, and it
became manifest to both of them that the incident must never have
happened. She went to the window, stood almost awkwardly for a moment
looking out of it, then turned. She put her hands on the back of the
chair and stood holding it.

"I knew you would come to see me," she said.

"I've been very anxious about you," he said, and on that their minds
rested through a little silence.

"You see," he explained, "I didn't know what was happening to you. Or
what you were doing."

"After asking your advice," she said.

"Exactly."

"I don't know why I broke that window. Except I think that I wanted to
get away."

"But why didn't you come to me?"

"I didn't know where you were. And besides--I didn't somehow want to
come to you."

"But wasn't it wretched in prison? Wasn't it miserably cold? I used to
think of you of nights in some wretched ill-aired cell.... You...."

"It _was_ cold," she admitted. "But it was very good for me. It was
quiet. The first few days seemed endless; then they began to go by
quickly. Quite quickly at last. And I came to think. In the day there
was a little stool where one sat. I used to sit on that and brood and
try to think things out--all sorts of things I've never had the chance
to think about before."

"Yes," said Mr. Brumley.

"All this," she said.

"And it has brought you back here!" he said, with something of the tone
of one who has a right to enquire, with some flavour too of reproach.

"You see," she said after a little pause, "during that time it was
possible to come to understandings. Neither I nor my husband had
understood the other. In that interval it was possible--to explain.

"Yes. You see, Mr. Brumley, we--we both misunderstood. It was just
because of that and because I had no one who seemed able to advise me
that I turned to you. A novelist always seems so wise in these things.
He seems to know so many lives. One can talk to you as one can scarcely
talk to anyone; you are a sort of doctor--in these matters. And it was
necessary--that my husband should realize that I had grown up and that I
should have time to think just how one's duty and one's--freedom have to
be fitted together.... And my husband is ill. He