hich he
had discarded.

Lottie only stood and stared at him, objectively. She did not think
to answer. He took his hat off, and put it on the dresser. Again the
familiar act maddened her.

"What have you come for?" she cried again, with a voice full of hate. Or
perhaps it was fear and doubt and even hope as well. He heard only hate.

This time he turned to look at her. The old dagger was drawn in her.

"I wonder," he said, "myself."

Then she recovered herself, and with trembling hand picked up her sewing
again. But she still stood at bay, beyond the table. She said nothing.
He, feeling tired, sat down on the chair nearest the door. But he
reached for his hat, and kept it on his knee. She, as she stood there
unnaturally, went on with her sewing. There was silence for some time.
Curious sensations and emotions went through the man's frame seeming to
destroy him. They were like electric shocks, which he felt she emitted
against him. And an old sickness came in him again. He had forgotten
it. It was the sickness of the unrecognised and incomprehensible strain
between him and her.

After a time she put down her sewing, and sat again in her chair.

"Do you know how vilely you've treated me?" she said, staring across the
space at him. He averted his face.

Yet he answered, not without irony.

"I suppose so."

"And why?" she cried. "I should like to know why."

He did not answer. The way she rushed in made him go vague.

"Justify yourself. Say why you've been so vile to me. Say what you had
against me," she demanded.

"What I HAD against her," he mused to himself: and he wondered that she
used the past tense. He made no answer.

"Accuse me," she insisted. "Say what I've done to make you treat me like
this. Say it. You must THINK it hard enough."

"Nay," he said. "I don't think it."

This speech, by which he merely meant that he did not trouble to
formulate any injuries he had against her, puzzled her.

"Don't come pretending you love me, NOW. It's too late," she said with
contempt. Yet perhaps also hope.

"You might wait till I start pretending," he said.

This enraged her.

"You vile creature!" she exclaimed. "Go! What have you come for?"

"To look at YOU," he said sarcastically.

After a few minutes she began to cry, sobbing violently into her apron.
And again his bowels stirred and boiled.

"What have I done! What have I done! I don't know what I've done that he
should be like this to me," she