erous grip that his passions had of him,
his boyish impatience, his wild-bull courage, and his inability
to distinguish between a wife and a mistress: she was happiest
when he slept, always holding her in his arms, exacting even in
sleep, but so naively youthful in the bloom of his four and
twenty summers, and, for the moment, all her own. She loved him
"because I am I--because you are you," and her tenderness was
edged with the profound pity that women felt in those days for
the men who came to them under the shadow of death. It was her
hope that the strong half-developed nature would grow to meet her
need. It grew swiftly enough: in the forcing-house of pain he
soon learned to think and to feel: but the change did not lead
him to his wife's heart.

Laura had married a man of a class and apparently normal to a
fault: she found herself united now to incarnate storm and
tempest. The first time she saw him at Surbiton, he drove her
out in five minutes with curses and insult. Why? Laura,
wandering about half-stunned in the visitors' room, had no idea
why. She stumbled against the furniture: she looked at the
photographs of Windermere and King's College Chapel and the
Nursing Staff on the walls: she took up Punch and began to read
it. Laura was no dreamer, she had never doubted that her husband
would rather have the use of his legs again than all the feminine
devotion in the world, but she had hoped to soothe him, perhaps
for a little while to make him forget: it had not crossed her
mind that her anguish of love and service would be rejected.
Enlightenment was like folding a sword to her breast.

By and by his nurse came down to her, a young hard-looking woman
with tired eyes. She had little comfort to give, but what she
gave Laura never forgot, because it was the truth without any
conventional or sentimental gloss. "You're having a bad time
with him, aren't you?" she said, coldly sympathetic. "It won't
last. Nothing lasts. You mustn't think he's left off caring for
you. I expect he was very fond of you, wasn't he? That's the
trouble. Some men take invalid life nicely and let their wives
fuss over them to their hearts' content, but Major Clowes is one
of those tremendously strong masculine men that always want to be
top dog. Besides, you're young and pretty, if you don't mind my
saying so, and you remind him of what he's done out of . . .
Twenty-four, isn't he? Don't give way, Mrs. Clowes, you've a
l