"Your uncle Joseph! Then I have broken into your uncle Joseph's house! Alice, send me away! Put me in prison! Do what you will to me! I can never hold up my head again."
Lady Alice looked gently at the wretched figure in front of her.
"I am glad to see you again," she said. "Because I wanted to say that it was MY fault!"
"Alice!"
"Can you forgive me?"
"Forgive you? If you knew what my life has been since I left you! If you knew into what paths of wickedness I have sunk! How only this evening, unnerved by excess, I have deliberately broken into this house—your uncle Joseph's house—in order to obtain food. Already I have eaten more than half a turkey and the best part of a plum-pudding. If you knew, I—"
With a gesture of infinite compassion she stopped him.
"Then let us forgive each other," she said with a smile. "A new year is beginning, Robert!"
He took her in his arms.
"Listen," he said.