thing--yet. I have some things there--that
I left the last time--"

"Oh, you're not going to stay all night," he groaned. "You'll come
back."

"Very well. If I come back--I come back. It will be so much the better
or so much the worse, as the case may be. If I come back, it will be
because I accept the compromise you make between me and--and your
other--"

He broke in hastily. "It's not a compromise--and there's no 'other.' If
you could see how far from vital the whole thing is, from a man's point
of view--"

"Unfortunately, I'm only a woman, and can see it only from a woman's
point of view. So that, if I don't come back, it will be
because--because--the Edith who was your wife is dead beyond
resurrection."

"But she isn't!"

"Perhaps not. We must see. I shall know better when I've--I've been away
from you a little."

"And in the mean time you may be risking your happiness and mine."

She shot him a reproachful glance. "Do _you_ say that?"

"Yes, Edith, I do say it. If I've broken the letter of the contract, you
may be transgressing its spirit. Don't forget that. Take care. What I
did, I did because I couldn't help it. You _can_ help it--"

"Oh no, I can't. That's where you haven't understood me. You say I don't
see things from your point of view, and perhaps I don't. But neither do
you see them from mine. You wonder why I don't go over there"--she
nodded toward the house--"where I had my home--where my children have
theirs--where you and I ... But I can't. That's all I can say. I may do
it some day; I don't know. But just now--I couldn't drag myself up the
steps. It would mean that we were going on as before, when all
that--that sort of thing--seems to me so--so utterly over."

"You'll feel differently when you've had time to think."

"Perhaps I shall. And time to think is all I'm asking. You understand
that, don't you? that I'm not making anything definite--yet. If I can
ever come back to you, I will. But if I can't--"

"Hello, mama! Hello, papa!" The elder boy galloped up. "We've seen the
monkeys. And one great big monkey looked like--"

"Allo, maman! Allo, papa! N's avons vu les singes--mais des droles!
Il y en avait un qui--"

The children caught their father round the knees. Stooping, he put his
arms about them, urging them toward their mother. They were to plead for
him--to be his advocates.

"Tell mama," he whispered to the older boy, "not to go to Aunt Emily's
to-night. Tell her we can't d