of my little girls--and who knows what vile things
he's guilty of, all these months?"

"I shouldn't let my imagination run away with me," he answered. "I've
been playing the flute in the orchestra of one of the theatres in
London."

"Ha!" she cried. "It's more than that. Don't think I'm going to believe
you. I know you, with your smooth-sounding lies. You're a liar, as you
know. And I know you've been doing other things besides play a flute
in an orchestra. You!--as if I don't know you. And then coming crawling
back to me with your lies and your pretense. Don't think I'm taken in."

"I should be sorry," he said.

"Coming crawling back to me, and expecting to be forgiven," she went on.
"But no--I don't forgive--and I can't forgive--never--not as long as I
live shall I forgive what you've done to me."

"You can wait till you're asked, anyhow," he said.

"And you can wait," she said. "And you shall wait." She took up her
sewing, and stitched steadily, as if calmly. Anyone glancing in would
have imagined a quiet domestic hearth at that moment. He, too, feeling
physically weak, remained silent, feeling his soul absent from the
scene.

Again she suddenly burst into tears, weeping bitterly.

"And the children," she sobbed, rocking herself with grief and chagrin.
"What have I been able to say to the children--what have I been able to
tell them?"

"What HAVE you told them?" he asked coldly.

"I told them you'd gone away to work," she sobbed, laying her head on
her arms on the table. "What else could I tell them? I couldn't tell
them the vile truth about their father. I couldn't tell THEM how evil
you are." She sobbed and moaned.

He wondered what exactly the vile truth would have been, had she
_started_ to tell it. And he began to feel, coldly and cynically, that
among all her distress there was a luxuriating in the violent emotions
of the scene in hand, and the situation altogether.

Then again she became quiet, and picked up her sewing. She stitched
quietly, wistfully, for some time. Then she looked up at him--a long
look of reproach, and sombre accusation, and wifely tenderness. He
turned his face aside.

"You know you've been wrong to me, don't you?" she said, half wistfully,
half menacing.

He felt her wistfulness and her menace tearing him in his bowels and
loins.

"You do know, don't you?" she insisted, still with the wistful appeal,
and the veiled threat.

"You do, or you would answer," she said. "