o feel unwanted. It was in this girl he wanted those things now; that
girl who could let herself go, whom life rioted in, who doubtless could
abandon herself to love as she could in romping with her dog. It
tortured her to think of the girl's flushed, glowing face--panting
there, hair tumbled. She cringed in the thought of how perhaps what she
had given was measured by what this girl could give.

As time went on she knew that her husband was more happy than he had
ever been before--and increasingly unhappy. Her torture in the thought
of his happiness made her wrest the last drop of satisfaction she could
from the knowledge that she could continue the unhappiness. Sometimes he
would come home and she would know he had been with this girl, know it
as if he had shouted it at her--it fairly breathed from him. To feel
that happiness near would have maddened her had she not been able to
feel that her very being there dealt unhappiness. It was a wretched
thing to live with. Beauty had not come into her life; it would not come
where that was.

And then she came to know that they were being cornered.
She--knowing--saw misery as well as love in the girl's eyes--a hunted
look. Her husband grew terribly nervous, irritable, like one trapped. It
was hurting his business; it was breaking down his health. Not until
afterward did she know that there was also a disease breaking down his
health. She did not know what difference it might have made had she
known that. By that time she had sunk pretty deep into lust for hurting,
into hating.

She saw that this love was going to wreck his life. His happiness was
going to break him. If the world came to know it would be known that her
husband did not want her, that he wanted someone else. She smarted under
that--and so fortified herself the stronger in an appearance of
unconcern. She could better bear exposure of his uncaringness for her
than let him suspect that he could hurt her. And they would be hurt! If
it became known it would wreck life for them both. The town would know
then about Ruth Holland--that wanton who looked so spiritual! They would
know then what the girl they had made so much of really was! She would
not any longer have to listen to that talk of Ruth Holland as so sweet,
so fine!

And so she waited; sure that it would come, would come without her
having given any sign, without her having been moved from her refuge of
unconcern--she who had given and not been wanted! That