“Is the whole world lying heavy on your shoulders to-night, Red?” Ellen asked presently, knowing that sometimes speech proved a relief from thought.

He nodded.  “The whole world—­millions of tons of it.  It’s just because I’m tired.  There’s no real reason why I should take this day’s work harder than usual—­except that I lost the Anderson case this morning.  Poor start for the day, eh?”

“But you knew you must lose it.  Nobody could have saved that poor creature.”

“I suppose not.  But I wanted to save him just the same.  You see, he particularly wanted to live, and he had pinned his whole faith to me.  He wouldn’t give it up that I could do the miracle.  It hurts to disappoint a faith like that.”

“Of course it does,” she said gently.  “But you must try to forget now, Red, because of to-morrow.  There will be people to-morrow who need you as much as he did.”

“That’s just what I’d like to forget,” he murmured.  “Everything’s gone wrong to-day—­it’ll go worse to-morrow.”

She knew it was small use to try to combat this mood, so unlike his usual optimism, but frequent enough of occurrence to make her understand that there is no depression like that of the habitually buoyant, once it takes firm hold.  She left him presently and went to sit by the reading lamp, looking through current magazines in hope of finding some article sufficiently attractive to capture his interest, and divert his heavy thoughts.  His eyes rested absently on her as she sat there, a charming, comradely figure in her simple home dinner attire, with the light on her dark hair and the exquisite curve of her cheek.

It was a fireside scene of alluring comfort, the two central figures of such opposite characteristics, yet so congenial.  The night outside was very cold, the wind blowing stormily in great gusts which now and then howled down the chimney, making the warmth and cheer within all the more appealing.

Suddenly Ellen, hunting vainly for the page she sought, lifted her head, to see her husband lift his at the same instant.

“Music?” she questioned.  “Where can it come from?  Not outside on such a night as this?”

“Did you hear it, too?  I’ve been thinking it my imagination.”

“It must be the wind, but—­no, it is music!”

She rose and went to the window, pushing aside draperies and setting her face to the frosty pane.  The next instant she called in a startled way: 

“Oh, Red—­come here!”

He came slowly, but the moment he caught sight of the figure in the storm outside his langour vanished.

“Good heavens!  The poor beggar!  We must have him in.”

He ran to the hall and the outer door, and Ellen heard his shout above the howling of the wind.

“Come in—­come in!”

She reached the door into the hall as the slender young figure stumbled up the steps, a violin clutched tight in fingers purple with cold.  She saw the stiff lips break into a frozen smile as her husband laid his hand upon the thinly clad shoulder and drew the youth where he could close the door.