“Our love was beautiful,” continued the Human Document, eager, apparently, to relate her experience for the common good; “just because it was a free gift. We were not fettered to one another. At any moment either of us could have walked out of the house. The idea never occurred to us; not for years—five, to be exact.” “So this is our new recruit,” she said. “She is come to bring healing to the sad, sick world—to right all the old, old wrongs.”!

Mrs. Phillips was sitting up in an easy chair near the heavily-curtained windows when Joan arrived. It was a pleasant little house in the old part of the town, and looked out upon the harbour. She was startlingly thin by comparison with what she had been; but her face was still painted. Phillips would run down by the afternoon train whenever he could get away. She never knew when he was coming, so she explained; and she could not bear the idea of his finding her “old and ugly.” She had fought against his wish that she should go into a nursing home; and Joan, who in the course of her work upon the Nursing Times had acquired some knowledge of them as a whole, was inclined to agree with her. She was quite comfortable where she was. The landlady, according to her account, was a dear. She had sent the nurse out for a walk on getting Joan’s wire, so that they could have a cosy chat. She didn’t really want much attendance. It was her heart. It got feeble now and then, and she had to keep very still; that was all. Joan told how her father had suffered for years from much the same complaint. So long as you were careful there was no danger. She must take things easily and not excite herself. “It isn’t as terrible as you think,” she said. “Many men who have risen and taken a high place in the world were married to kind, good women unable to share their greatness. There was Shakespeare, you know, who married Anne Hathaway and had a clever daughter. She was just a nice, homely body a few years older than himself. And he seems to have been very fond of her; and was always running down to Stratford to be with her.”

It consoled him, later, that he was not the only victim. The Daily Dispatch became famous for its piquant interviews; especially with elderly celebrities of the masculine gender. “That’s like you women,” he answered with a smile. “You pretend to be superior; and then you copy us.” “No, dear,” he answered, “if you wish it.”