Alice Lane walked quietly along the pier toward the sea, having left West alone with his wife, who was suffering from one of her racking headaches that formed the chief symptom of her illness. Sedate, tall, well-proportioned, with ample movements and strong, straight, alert gaze, more than one man turned to look after her as she went by, thinking that this was a woman upon whom a man could rely for sufficient help in time of trouble. But calm as was her outward seeming, her brain was busied over the problem which had become the great question of her life, and which she believed would soon have to be answered. She did not think that West had guessed the secret of her love for him, the secret which she had so jealously guarded, but she feared that Agatha had discovered it, for she had noticed lately a coolness in her manner and a watchfulness that was new. She had noticed, also, a distinct change in West’s bearing toward his wife, for which she was puzzled to account. She had all along felt that he would not be able to find abiding content in the companionship of Agatha; that to win his lasting affection something more was needed than mere prettiness and winsomeness, but the change had come sooner than she had expected, and she fancied that perhaps there might be some external influence at work, perhaps another woman. Had Agatha contented West and made him happy, Alice Lane would have suffered silently, have made no sign, would never have attempted to win his love. But if Agatha had lost him, she felt free to take him if she could gain him, no matter at what cost to herself. Her love for him was unselfish, and if by any sacrifice she could achieve his welfare, she would gladly make it.

Both Agatha and he pooh-poohed any suggestion on her part that her visit to them must come to an end, but she had decided that it must do so, and at once. She could no longer bear the strain of guarding her every action, look and word for fear that either of them should see into her heart. That she had some way betrayed herself to Agatha she was assured, but she must keep her secret from Philip until such time as he should have a secret to confide to her. Leave them then she must, returning to town and the companionship of her brother.

She watched from the end of the pier the soft glitter of the sunshine upon the broken water. She tried to puzzle out her future course, but the way was not plain to her. There was this added to her concern, that apart from the breaking up of his love for his wife, West was restless and evidently worried by some business care. It hurt her to think of him alone with his trouble, with no one who, even without understanding, could give him nourishing sympathy. She would have sacrificed her soul to have been free to link her arm in his and to offer to walk the difficult way by his side, not supported by him, not supporting him, but mutually confident, comrades, allies.

She was suddenly aware of some one standing close beside her, and turning slowly found that West was watching her with evident amusement. Taking his cigar out of his mouth, he said:

“A penny for your thoughts!”

“Not for sale,” she replied. “I did not know you were coming out.”

“Neither did I. But Aggy was—out of sorts,” he said slowly, “out of sorts. So I sent her off to lie down and rest; and came along here at a venture, knowing how fond you are of drinking in the fresh air. Not that you seemed to be doing so just now in any great quantities, for your mouth was close shut, and you looked as if you were wanting to fight somebody. How do you feel for a sharp walk? Let’s go along to Hove and back, it’ll brisk us up; at least I want brisking up. You never seem to vary, like a weatherglass fixed at ‘set fair.’”

“Blessed are good appearances,” she said, tacitly accepting his suggestion; “I fancy it’s best not to show your emotions; so few people know how to sympathize. Most of them talk, and that’s the least part of sympathy—at least I think so.”

“Do I show my emotions?”

“I can only guess whether you do or not. I might think I knew what you were feeling, and I might be quite wrong.”

“What am I feeling now?”

“Glad to be out in the fresh air; glad to be moving; hoping by talking to me to be able to forget for a while—your worries.”

“My worries?” he asked, looking at her keenly, and wondering why she turned her face away and gazed steadily out at the sea. “My worries? H’m. I don’t think much of you as a thought-reader; you might say that to any busy man, who has had a hard day and most of a night working in town.”

“Yes—but you don’t usually carry your business worries about with you, as you have been doing lately.”

“Oh! Lately. Those quiet gray eyes of yours are keen. Well, it’s quite true, I am unusually worried just now, and you’ll be surprised to hear that I hate having to bear my worries alone. I used not to mind that when I was alone. You see, Aggy doesn’t understand business; it isn’t her line exactly——”

He stopped short, for it occurred to him that it was an awkward thing to discuss his wife with another woman, however intimate a friend she might be of them both.

“Besides,” he went on quickly, “it isn’t fair to worry her just now; she’s seedy and out of sorts and wants cheering, not depressing.”

“Depressing?”

“Well, so it would be to tell her I’m worried, for she knows I don’t fidget about trifles. I must go up to town again to-morrow and tackle a lot of old fossils who are driving me to exasperation.”

“I suppose you’ll be going by the early train?”

“Yes—why?”

“If you could wait till a bit later—you might escort me.”

“Why, what are you running up for? Can’t I do it for you?”

“I’m running away altogether. Now, don’t interrupt. I must go; I told you I was going, and you wouldn’t believe me. So now you must both accept your fate and make the best of me at a distance.”

“I jolly well won’t. Your brother said I was to take care of you and how the doose can I do that if you won’t stay with us? Besides, I must be away a good deal at present, and Aggy will be lonely——”

“She has other friends. And—I don’t think Aggy is quite so fond of me as she used to be.”

“Oh, nonsense. She’s not quite herself now; you mustn’t mind her when she’s a bit off color.”

“That’s not why I’m going; I merely mentioned it to show that there was less reason for my staying than you supposed. It’s very good and very kind of you—of you both—to have had me with you so long, and not to have got tired of my sober-sidedness. But don’t you know yet how obstinate I am?”

“Obstinate? I should hardly put it that way. Firm, I should say. Yes, I’ve observed it; you generally have your own way.”

“I didn’t mean that. And how can you tell? Perhaps I’m wise enough only to let my wishes be known when I feel pretty sure of getting them, and to bottle them up tight when I know they’re hopeless.”

They walked along some way in silence. Alice had become a habit, and to learn that she was going to leave them made him realize that the absence of her quiet influence would make a real change to him. His wife had almost suddenly grown to be nothing to him but a burden which he had taken up and which he must carry with as good an outward grace as he could assume. He believed her emotions to be so shallow that she would not long moan over his dead affection and that she would be reasonably content so long as he could provide her with luxuries and amusement. But now he was brought definitely face to face with the fact that he was bound to a companion who was becoming every day more distasteful to him and with whom he would have to spend many days alone. There are people whose influence though strong is so quiet that we do not value them at their true price until they are taken from us; such an one was Alice Lane. Her suddenly announced departure showed plainly to West that she had become almost a necessity to him; that she had helped often to smooth away asperities and to cover over Agatha’s deficiencies, and that she could give him that comradeship which he had learned the need of by discovering his wife’s inability to give it to him.

Comradeship only, he believed, for he did not, in any usual sense of the word, love her. She had become a quiet, steadying, soothing influence, a mental support and sedative. It was not her strange, placid comeliness that appealed to him; it was not the feminine in her: she was almost to him what a man friend would be, save that, as a woman, he had to treat her with respect, and with self-respect. She had not come between him and his wife, but, on the contrary, by complementing her deficiencies, had made her the longer endurable. He had grown accustomed during the last few months to her companionship; he had not, indeed, talked much to her, or in any degree sought her confidence, but her mere presence had acted soothingly upon him; and to be with her had been restful and pacifying. Her return to her brother’s house would practically mean that she would go out of his life, except for occasional visits and meetings. But he could think of no compelling reason that he could urge for her staying longer with them, and, as she had accused him of being, he was well aware of her firmness in carrying out any decision to which she had come. He had been accustomed to having his own way with those around him, but instead of irritating him, it added to his respect and admiration for her, to find that what she thought right to do, she would do, and that no persuasion of his could move or stay her.

“Tell me why you are going?” he asked, as they turned to go homeward, and faced the eager wind. “And why you think that Aggy doesn’t care so much for you as she used to do?”

“If I were a man I suppose I should be expected to give a reason for my doings. But you see, I’m a mere woman, and of course act on impulse.”

“Not at all a mere woman. And much too clever, not to know that generalizations are always untrue. I conclude that a man’s an ignorant ass when he says that something or other is ‘just like a woman.’ Though it is rather like a woman to avoid answering a question by making an aimless remark. Why are you going home?”

“Why should I have stayed so long? Why shouldn’t I go away? Why—why—lots of ‘whys.’”

“Don’t you enjoy being with us?”

“Of course I do,” she answered, no sign of the pain the question caused her showing in her tone, though she ached to be able to tell him how exquisite was the torture to which he was putting her. “Of course I do. I did think you knew that; you’re not the sort of man who needs to be told everything every day.”

“Well, I won’t make use of an old friend’s privilege of worrying you. But, look here, when’ll you come to see us again?”

“When Aggy asks me, if she doesn’t ask me too soon.”

The words sprang to her lips in such haste that she could not stay them. She repented them bitterly, for she realized at once that they might lead to disaster for Agatha, who might refuse to ask her again to visit her; who might, rendered brave by jealousy, oppose her husband’s wish, who might, in a moment of anger, give her reason for so doing, thereby perhaps making an inevitable breach in her married happiness. But the words being said, any attempt to withdraw them might stimulate dangerous questioning on his part.

“When Aggy asks you!” he answered, throwing his head up and laughing gayly. “Well, you may as well not go away at all, then. Does she know you’re going to-morrow?”

“I told her yesterday.”

“Funny she didn’t tell me. What did she say?”

“Asked me to stay.”

“There you are!”

She bit her lip and looked away from him, but he could see the expression of trouble that was upon her face, and felt compunction at having so over-eagerly pressed her.

“What an obstinate tease I am!” he said. “When I can’t have my own way, I’ve a beastly habit of plugging away till I get it, quite forgetting what it may cost the other chap to give it. What a clumsy boor you must think me; I deserve to be kicked. I ought to know well enough that you always have a real reason for what you do.”

She dared not reply, for fear her voice would betray her.

When they reached the hotel he went up to his wife’s room, hoping to find her physically better, and less querulous for her rest. She was lying on the bed, covered with a thick eider-down quilt, and turned slowly to look at him as he came in tiptoe.

“I was just going to sleep, and now you’ve roused me up,” she complained, and turned away again.

“I’m so sorry, dearie; it was clumsy of me,” he said, going round the bed, and sitting down on the side. He took her hand, which she let lie passively in his.

“Don’t feel any better?” he asked.

“My head’s not aching so much, at least not quite.”

“That’s fine. ‘Once on the mend, soon at an end.’”

“Where did you walk?”

“Just along the front with Alice, nearly to Hove. The wind’s jolly cold.”

“Jolly? It’s horrid; Brighton’s horrid: too cold to go out, and the hotel is so stuffy.”

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed it. But I do wish you would go out more. You know what the doctor said—lots of fresh air.”

“But he didn’t tell me to go out when it was so cold it gave me neuralgia all over my head.”

“Let me ring and we’ll have tea up here. It’ll cheer you up.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t always treat me like a child!” she said pettishly; “so long as you give me pretty things or feed me with sweets you think I’m happy.”

“Aren’t you happy, dear?”

“No, I’m not!” she answered sharply.

“Not?” he repeated, as he stood up and started to walk about the room. “I thought you were, dear. What can I do? I’ve always tried my best to give you what you wanted.”

“Please don’t walk about like that, you don’t know what a headache is. You—don’t understand things.”

“Don’t I?” he asked, standing with his back to the fire; “then why not try to teach me?”

“You always think you know everything, and are always right and that I’m always wrong. But I’m right sometimes.”

“Why, Aggy, what on earth have I done to deserve such a slating?”

As she did not make any reply he went across to the bedside, and, stooping down, kissed her, upon which she turned impatiently away.

“If you don’t want me to treat you as a child you shouldn’t behave like one,” he said, and, after a moment’s hesitation, walked out of the room.