while you have been running with that little snip of an Irish thing,
and telling her all about your affairs, I suppose. You let me go on
believing that you cared for me up to the last moment, and then you
suddenly step up and tell me that you want a divorce. I'll not do it.
I'll not give you a divorce, and you needn't think it."

Cowperwood listened in silence. His position, in so far as this marital
tangle was concerned, as he saw, was very advantageous. He was a
convict, constrained by the exigencies of his position to be out of
personal contact with his wife for a long period of time to come, which
should naturally tend to school her to do without him. When he came
out, it would be very easy for her to get a divorce from a convict,
particularly if she could allege misconduct with another woman, which he
would not deny. At the same time, he hoped to keep Aileen's name out of
it. Mrs. Cowperwood, if she would, could give any false name if he made
no contest. Besides, she was not a very strong person, intellectually
speaking. He could bend her to his will. There was no need of saying
much more now; the ice had been broken, the situation had been put
before her, and time should do the rest.

"Don't be dramatic, Lillian," he commented, indifferently. "I'm not such
a loss to you if you have enough to live on. I don't think I want to
live in Philadelphia if ever I come out of here. My idea now is to go
west, and I think I want to go alone. I sha'n't get married right away
again even if you do give me a divorce. I don't care to take anybody
along. It would be better for the children if you would stay here and
divorce me. The public would think better of them and you."

"I'll not do it," declared Mrs. Cowperwood, emphatically. "I'll never
do it, never; so there! You can say what you choose. You owe it to me to
stick by me and the children after all I've done for you, and I'll not
do it. You needn't ask me any more; I'll not do it."

"Very well," replied Cowperwood, quietly, getting up. "We needn't talk
about it any more now. Your time is nearly up, anyhow." (Twenty minutes
was supposed to be the regular allotment for visitors.) "Perhaps you'll
change your mind sometime."

She gathered up her muff and the shawl-strap in which she had carried
her gifts, and turned to go. It had been her custom to kiss Cowperwood
in a make-believe way up to this time, but now she was too angry to make
this pretense. And yet she was sorry, to