Carleton himself never interrupted them. Indeed, one might have thought he was not listening, so engrossed he appeared to be in the pile of letters and telegrams that lay waiting for him on his desk. When they had finished he would ask them questions, still with his attention fixed apparently upon the paper in his hand. Then, looking up for the first time, he would run off curt instructions, much in the tone of a Commander-in-Chief giving orders for an immediate assault; and, finishing abruptly, return to his correspondence. When the last, as it transpired, had closed the door behind him, he swung his chair round and faced her. “It’s quite easy,” said Joan, “with your beauty. Especially if you’re not going to be particular. But isn’t there danger of your devotion to your father leading you too far? A marriage founded on a lie—no matter for what purpose!—mustn’t it degrade a woman—smirch her soul for all time? We have a right to give up the things that belong to ourselves, but not the things that belong to God: our truth, our sincerity, our cleanliness of mind and body; the things that He may one day want of us. It led you into evil once before. Don’t think I’m judging you. I was no better than you. I argued just as you must have done. Something stopped me just in time. That was the only difference between us.”!

“We won’t despair of her,” laughed Joan. “She’s creeping up, poor lady, as Whistler said of her. We have passed the phase when everything she did was right in our childish eyes. Now we dare to criticize her. That shows we are growing up. She will learn from us, later on. She’s a dear old thing, at heart.” Mary had been searching in the pockets of his cloak. She had found a paper bag. “You mustn’t get excited,” she said, laying her little work-worn hand upon his shoulder; “or you’ll bring on the bleeding.”

“You won’t mind my running away for a minute,” she said. “I shall only be in the next room.” “Tell them that,” he said. “Let them hear each other. It’s the same at a meeting. You wait ten minutes sometimes before one man will summon up courage to put a question; but once one or two have ventured they spring up all round you. I was wondering,” he added, “if you would help me; let me use you, now and again.” “No,” he answered. “Not that sort of sleep.” She could not see his face. But she guessed his meaning.