f view, I'm sure it hasn't
always been easy."

"No, of course not."

"You see that, don't you, Esther? I mean a young woman married to an
old man--I daresay she didn't realise what it was going to be like."

He leaned his head on his hands for a moment, his forehead furrowed.
He gave the impression of arguing with himself. Then he looked up
suddenly.

"She said to me, 'I don't expect sympathy from you, Roger, but you are
a man of the world; you can't go on for ever so completely misjudging
me. You had the wrong idea about me six years ago'..."

He broke off, evidently regretting his last words, but Esther made no
comment, and he went quickly on:

"I didn't know what to say. I was damned uncomfortable. The odd part
about it is, Esther, that inside me I don't like her much better than I
did before, only she made me see how unfairly I've behaved. I feel I
owe it to her to try and be nicer. Can you understand?"

"Of course I can. Why shouldn't you feel like that? She's your
father's wife."

"Yes, she's my father's wife.... Well, the finish of it was she put
her hands on my shoulders, very simply, like a child, and asked if we
could be friends. What could I say? And then she put her cheek
against me, and--and I put my arms around her; she seemed to expect it,
and I didn't know what else to do. And then you came in. Gad, shall I
ever forget your eyes!"

Esther laughed in relief, her companion joined her, and for several
seconds they were a prey to helpless merriment. The whole affair was
so different now; Roger's explanation had taken all the sting out of
it. She could understand his guilty look; he had been the
battle-ground for one of those fights between reason and prejudice, his
sense of justice Striving to overcome a deeply rooted aversion.

"S'sh! We mustn't make a noise! Good-night--I'm off to bed."

He caught hold of her hands, detaining her.

"See here, you don't think me a hopeless fool, do you?"

"Certainly not; why should I?"

"And you don't think now that I was making love to her or anything like
that, do you?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure! If you keep protesting----"

She broke off with a teasing smile, looking down on him from the step
above.

"Esther, you----"

Chalmers entered the hall with a measured step, on his way to bolt the
front door. Esther took advantage of the interruption to tear herself
away.

"Good-night," she called softly over her shoulder, and vanish