t you? You have given me
every care and attention, haven't you?"

"You seem to me in a very strange mood to-day," she said, looking
puzzled. "I don't understand you."

Mr. Reffold laughed.

"Poor Winifred," he said. "If it is ever your lot to fall ill and be
neglected, perhaps then you will think of me."

"Neglected?" she said, in some surprise. "What do you mean? I thought
you had everything you wanted. The nurse brought excellent testimonials.
I was careful in the choice of her. You have never complained before."

He turned wearily on his side, and made no answer. And for some time
there was silence between them.

Then he watched her as she bent over her embroidery.

"You are very beautiful, Winifred," he said quietly, "but you are a
selfish woman. Has it ever struck you that you are selfish?"

Mrs. Reffold gave no reply, but she made a resolution to write to her
particular friend at Cannes and confide to her how very trying her
husband had become.

"I suppose it is part of his illness," she thought meekly. "But it is
hard to have to bear it."

And Mrs. Reffold pitied herself profoundly. She stitched sincere pity
for herself into that piece of embroidery.

"I remember you telling me," continued Mr. Reffold, "that sick people
repelled you. That was when I was strong and vigorous. But since I have
been ill, I have often recalled your words. Poor Winifred! You did not
think then that you would have an invalid husband on your hands. Well,
you were not intended for sick-room nursing, and you have not tried to
be what you were not intended for. Perhaps you were right, after all."

"I don't know why you should be so unkind to-day," Mrs. Reffold said,
with pathetic patience. "I can't understand you. You have never spoken
like this before."

"No," he said; "but I have thought like this before. All the hours you
have left me lonely, I have been thinking like this, with my heart full
of bitterness against you, until that little girl, that Little Brick
came along."

After that, it was some time before he spoke. He was thinking of his
Little Brick, and of all the pleasant hours he had spent with her, and
of the kind, wise words she had spoken to him, an ignorant fellow. She
was something like a companion.

So he went on thinking, and Mrs. Reffold went on embroidering. She was
now feeling herself to be almost a heroine. It is a very easy matter to
make oneself into a heroine or a martyr. Selfish, neglectful? What