, but he is devoted to her all the same," she said.

"Pappy idiot!" Mr Barett ejaculated. He worked himself deeper into his
chair, and held his newspaper before his face.

His wife knitted on, and presently said, as if of the outcome of her
thought, "I will go in and see Vera to-morrow, of course."

The newspaper rustled defiantly as it was turned over.

"You know very well, Everard, if Vera is really ill there is no one
more sorry than I. Of course, I shall not neglect her."

He was mollified by that, and lowered the paper sufficiently to gaze
over the top of it into the fire. "It would be rather unfair if you
did; and, considering all the little woman did for you when baby was
born, a little like ingratitude into the bargain," he said. "You can't
have forgotten all she did?"

No. She had not forgotten, Mrs Barett admitted.

"Here every day of her life, and sometimes all day long--neglecting her
own home, and----"

"I remember perfectly, dear," said Lucilla. "What of it?"

Her husband repeated the question in a tone of exasperation, got up,
threw away his newspaper, fidgeted about the room, moving the chairs
out of his way, staring at the ornaments. "What of it?" he asked. "I
suppose, knowing she was there, and seeing after things--saving me
bother in giving orders, coming between me and that infernal nurse, and
so on--was a comfort to you, wasn't it?"

Mrs Barett, intent on her knitting, made no reply.

His position was strong; he repeated his question: "Wasn't it, I say?"

"It was a comfort to you, I suppose," Lucilla said, then. "We will
leave it there."

He gave her a quick glance, angrily questioning. He had temporarily
anchored against the fender now, and stood with his heels on it, his
hands in his pockets.

"I suppose that it was a comfort to me was something, at any rate?" he
asked. He shrugged an angry shoulder. "I was the one that had to go
through the misery of it, I know that. I shan't easily forget the time
before, when Billy was born, and I was shut up for a solid three weeks
with your mother! Heavens! going about with a face like a funeral!
Looking at me as if I was a monster every time I took up my hat to go
out! I should think Vera Butt was a comfort to me! It wasn't as if you
had been really ill. You know you were always saying you wanted to get
up and come downstairs to be with us, weren't you?"

"I certainly should have liked better to be with you," Lucilla
admitted.

"Well, and