that the women work much more, the men less.' I can never get away from
the thought of the women! Their lives come to seem to me the mere refuse,
the rags and shreds, that are thrown every day into the mill and ground
to nothing--without a thought--without a word of pity, an hour of
happiness! Cancer--three children left out of nine--and barely forty,
though she looked sixty! They tell me she may live eighteen months. Then,
when the parish has buried her, the man has only to hold up his finger to
find someone else to use up in the same way. And she is just one of
thousands."

"I can only reply by the old, stale question," said Tressady, sturdily.
"Did we make the mill? Can we stop its grinding? And if not, is it fair
even to the race that has something to gain from courage and gaiety--is
it _reasonable_ to take all our own poor little joy and drench it in
this horrible pain of sympathy, as you do! But we have said all these
things before."

He bent over to her, smiling. But she did not look up. And he saw a tear
which her weakness, born of shock and fatigue, could not restrain, steal
from the lashes on the cheek. Then he added, still leaning towards her:

"Only, what I never have said--I think--is what is true to-night. At last
you have made one person feel--if that matters anything!--the things you
feel. I don't know that I am particularly grateful to you! And,
practically, we may be as far apart as ever. But I was without a sense
when I went into this game of politics; and now--"

His heart beat. What would he not have said, mad youth!--within the
limits imposed by her nature and his own dread--to make her look at him,
to soften this preposterous sadness!