wn at her bidding; but with elbows resting on the table he
covered his face with his hands. She clasped her own and sat looking at
him. That is, she sat looking at his strong knuckles and at the shock of
dark hair that fell over the finger-tips where the nails dug into his
forehead. She felt a great pity for him; but a pity that permitted her
to sit there, watchful, detached, not as if it was Thor--but some one
else.

There would be an end now to silences and concealments. She saw that
already. He was making no further attempt to keep her in the dark. In
the shock of the moment all the barricades he had built around his
secret life had fallen like the walls of Jericho. She had nothing to do
but walk upward and inward and take possession. All was open. There was
neither shrine nor sanctuary any longer. It was no privilege to be
admitted thus; anybody would have been admitted who sat beside him as
she was sitting now.

But in the end the paroxysm passed and his hands came down.

"I know it's hard for you, Thor--" The eyes he turned on her were full
of such unspeakable things that she stopped. She was obliged to wait
till he looked away again before she could go on. "I know it's hard for
you, Thor. It's hard for--for us all. But my point is that bitterness or
violence will only make it worse. You must remember--I feel that I
_must_ remind you of it--that you're not the--not the only sufferer."

He bowed his head into his hands again, but without the mad anguish of a
few minutes earlier.

"Where so much is intolerable," she pursued, "what we have to do--each
one of us--is to see how tolerable we can make things for every one
else."

He raised his head for one quick, reproachful glance. "Do you mean
tolerable for--for Claude?"

"Yes, I do mean for Claude. _We_ sha'n't have to punish him."

He gave her another look. "Then what have we got to do?"

"Nothing that isn't kind--and well thought out beforehand. That's really
the important thing. When one can't move without hurting some one, isn't
it better not to move at all?"

It was the old doctrine of tarrying the Lord's leisure against which his
instincts were still in revolt. His indignation was such that he could
partially turn and face her. "Do you mean to say that we should _let_
him abandon her--_now_?"

She laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Thor dear, it isn't for us to let--or
prevent--or anything. We can't drive other people--and it's only to a
slight degree