THE WINDOW

doing. She remembered that iniquity of his
wife's towards him, which had made her turn to
steel and adamant there, in the horrid little room
in St. John's Wood, when with her own eyes she
had seen that odious woman turn him out of the
house. He was unkempt; he dropped things on
his coat; he had the tiresomeness of an old man
with nothing in the world to do; and she turned
him out of the room. She said, in her odious way,
" Now, Mrs. Ramsay and I want to have a little
talk together," and Mrs. Ramsay could see, as if
before her eyes, the innumerable miseries of his
life. Had he money enough to buy tobacco?
Did he have to ask her for it? half a crown?
eighteenpence? Oh, she could not bear to think
of the little indignities she made him suffer. And
always now (why, she could not guess, except that
it came probably from that woman somehow) he
shrank from her. He never told her anything.
But what more could she have done? There was
a sunny room given up to him. The children
were good to him. Never did she show a sign of
not wanting him. She went out of her way indeed
to be friendly. Do you want stamps, do you want
tobacco? Here's a book you might like and so
on. And after all—after all (here insensibly she
drew herself together, physically, the sense of her
own beauty becoming, as it did so seldom, present

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