ified to sit in judgment on that part of your life, although
I'll admit that many of the things you have done, in common with the men
with whom you are associated, have seemed to me unjust and inconsiderate
of the rights and feelings of others. You have alienated some of your
best friends. If I were to arraign you at all, it would be on the score
of heartlessness. But I suppose it isn't your fault, that you haven't any
heart."

"That's unfair," I put in.

"I don't wish to be unfair," she replied. "Only, since you ask me, I have
to tell you that that is the way it seems to me. I don't want to
introduce the question of right and wrong into this, Hugh, I'm not
capable of unravelling it; I can't put myself into your life, and see
things from your point of view, weigh your problems and difficulties. In
the first place, you won't let me. I think I understand you, partly--but
only partly. You have kept yourself shut up. But why discuss it? I have
made up my mind."

The legal aspect of the matter occurred to me. What right had she to
leave me? I might refuse to support her. Yet even as these thoughts came
I rejected them; I knew that it was not in me to press this point. And
she could always take refuge with her father; without the children, of
course. But the very notion sickened me. I could not bear to think of
Maude deprived of the children. I had seated myself again at the table. I
put my hand to my forehead.

"Don't make it hard, Hugh," I heard her say, gently. "Believe me, it is
best. I know. There won't be any talk about it,--right away, at any rate.
People will think it natural that I should wish to go abroad for the
summer. And later--well, the point of view about such affairs has
changed. They are better understood."

She had risen. She was pale, still outwardly composed,--but I had a
strange, hideous feeling that she was weeping inwardly.

"Aren't you coming back--ever?" I cried.

She did not answer at once.

"I don't know," she said, "I don't know," and left the room abruptly....

I wanted to follow her, but something withheld me. I got up and walked
around the room in a state of mind that was near to agony, taking one of
the neglected books out of the shelves, glancing at its meaningless
print, and replacing it; I stirred the fire, opened the curtains and
gazed out into the street and closed them again. I looked around me, a
sudden intensity of hatred seized me for this big, silent, luxurious
house; I re