u Rogers hain't got anything to complain of, and that's
what I told you from the start. It's a thing that's done every day. I
was loaded up with a partner that didn't know anything, and couldn't do
anything, and I unloaded; that's all."

"You unloaded just at the time when you knew that your paint was going
to be worth about twice what it ever had been; and you wanted all the
advantage for yourself."

"I had a right to it. I made the success."

"Yes, you made it with Rogers's money; and when you'd made it you took
his share of it. I guess you thought of that when you saw him, and
that's why you couldn't look him in the face."

At these words Lapham lost his temper.

"I guess you don't want to ride with me any more to-day," he said,
turning the mare abruptly round.

"I'm as ready to go back as what you are," replied his wife. "And
don't you ask me to go to that house with you any more. You can sell
it, for all me. I sha'n't live in it. There's blood on it."

IV.

THE silken texture of the marriage tie bears a daily strain of wrong
and insult to which no other human relation can be subjected without
lesion; and sometimes the strength that knits society together might
appear to the eye of faltering faith the curse of those immediately
bound by it. Two people by no means reckless of each other's rights
and feelings, but even tender of them for the most part, may tear at
each other's heart-strings in this sacred bond with perfect impunity;
though if they were any other two they would not speak or look at each
other again after the outrages they exchange. It is certainly a
curious spectacle, and doubtless it ought to convince an observer of
the divinity of the institution. If the husband and wife are blunt,
outspoken people like the Laphams, they do not weigh their words; if
they are more refined, they weigh them very carefully, and know
accurately just how far they will carry, and in what most sensitive
spot they may be planted with most effect.

Lapham was proud of his wife, and when he married her it had been a
rise in life for him. For a while he stood in awe of his good fortune,
but this could not last, and he simply remained supremely satisfied
with it. The girl who had taught school with a clear head and a strong
hand was not afraid of work; she encouraged and helped him from the
first, and bore her full share of the common burden. She had health,
and she did not worry his life out with p