h in her ignorance it seemed to
her that he had become suddenly another person. That she had entered
into one of those awful hours of self-realization, when the soul must
face its limitations alone and make its readjustments in silence, did
not occur to her, because she, who had lived every minute of her life
under the eyes of her parents or her children, could have no
comprehension of the hunger for solitude which was devouring Oliver's
heart. She saw merely that he did not want her--that she had not only
startled, but angered him by coming; and the bitterness of that instant
seemed to her more than she was able to bear. Something had changed him;
he was older, he was harder, he was embittered.

"I--I am so sorry," she stammered; and because even in the agony of this
moment she could not think long of herself, she added almost humbly,
"Would you rather that I should go back again?" Then, by the haggard
look of his face as he turned away from her towards the window, she saw
that he, also, was suffering, and her soul yearned over him as it had
yearned over Harry when he had had the toothache. "Oh, Oliver!" she
cried, and again, "Oh, Oliver, won't you let me help you?"

But he was in the mood of despairing humiliation when one may support
abuse better than pity. His failure, he knew, had been undeserved, and
he was still smarting from the injustice of it as from the blows of a
whip. For twenty-four hours his nerves had been on the rack, and his one
desire had been to hide himself in the spiritual nakedness to which he
was stripped. Had he been obliged to choose a witness to his suffering,
it is probable that he would have selected a stranger from the street
rather than his wife. The one thing that could have helped him, an
intelligent justification of his work, she was powerless to give. In his
need she had nothing except love to offer; and love, she felt
instinctively, was not the balm for his wound.

Afraid and yet passionately longing to meet his eyes, she let her gaze
fall away from him and wander timidly, as if uncertain where to rest,
about the disordered room, with its dull red walls, its cheap Nottingham
lace curtains tied back with cords, its elaborately carved walnut
furniture, and its litter of days old newspapers upon the bed. She saw
his neckties hanging in an uneven row over the oblong mirror, and she
controlled a nervous impulse to straighten them out and put them away.

"Why didn't you telegraph me?" he