tears in her great eyes, and her under lip quivered and
turned downwards like a wet rose-leaf.

"He is so _very_ wrapped up in all this digging business, why did he
want to marry me at all?" she said, in a sort of helpless childish
wonder.

Talbot was silent, looking at her, and then instead of answering her
question, said--

"Why don't you make him notice you more? why can't you appeal to him?"

"Appeal to him!" she repeated; "it's no use. Why, he is
gold-plated--eyes, ears, touch, everything, all plated over; you can't
reach him through it."

"Have men nothing like affection in them?" she said, after a minute.
"Have they nothing between their mad bursts of passion and a cold
incivility? What do they do with all the charming ways they have before
they possess a woman? Stephen was so gentle, so nice, so interested,
when he used to visit me down town; and now you see how rude and hateful
he is very often. Why do they change? I have not changed. I am still as
attentive, as eager to please him, more so, than when he came to my
cabin. Oh," she added, after a minute, "I'm getting so tired of it all,
I feel I'd like to throw it all up and go back to my own life and
freedom. All the men are so civil and so nice and so devoted as long as
a woman does nothing for them," she said simply, not fully realising
perhaps the terrible ironical truth she was half-unconsciously uttering.

"I could love him immensely," she added, stretching out her arms; "oh,
he could have such a love from me, if he wanted it; but as it is, I
don't see much use in my staying with him. I feel I'd like to go back to
my own life and forget I ever married him."

"Oh, you must not do that," said Talbot, startled out of his usual calm,
and fixing his eyes on her; "pray don't think of such things."

"Do you think he would care?" she said, opening her eyes in her turn.

"I'm sure he would," Talbot answered, with so much emphasis and decision
that the girl sat silent and impressed for some seconds.

"Why is he not more amiable then?" she asked.

"It's men's way," returned Talbot, not knowing exactly what to say, and
accidentally hitting the truth completely.

"They're fools," replied Katrine, angrily, while the hot tears fell
thickly into her lap.

Stephen came in at the moment, and though Katrine made no attempt to
conceal the fact that she was crying, he took no notice of her, but
began talking to Talbot about the wood.

"We shall have to take t