lovely voice, her exquisite lips and
eyes, the marvel of her touch and beautiful fancy!

He tried to compose poetry to her, and wrote a series of sonnets to his
beloved, which were not at all bad. He worked on his sketch book of
pencil portraits of Suzanne seeking a hundred significant and delightful
expressions and positions, which could afterwards be elaborated into his
gallery of paintings of her, which he proposed to paint at some time. It
did not matter to him that Angela was about, though he had the
graciousness to conceal these things from her. He was ashamed, in a way,
of his treatment of her, and yet the sight of her now was not so much
pitiable as objectionable and unsatisfactory. Why had he married her? He
kept asking himself that.

They sat in the studio one night. Angela's face was a picture of
despair, for the horror of her situation was only by degrees coming to
her, and she said, seeing him so moody and despondent:

"Eugene, don't you think you can get over this? You say Suzanne has been
spirited away. Why not let her go? Think of your career, Eugene. Think
of me. What will become of me? You can get over it, if you try. Surely
you won't throw me down after all the years I have been with you. Think
how I have tried. I have been a pretty good wife to you, haven't I? I
haven't annoyed you so terribly much, have I? Oh, I feel all the time as
though we were on the brink of some terrible catastrophe! If only I
could do something; if only I could say something! I know I have been
hard and irritable at times, but that is all over now. I am a changed
woman. I would never be that way any more."

"It can't be done, Angela," he replied calmly. "It can't be done. I
don't love you. I've told you that. I don't want to live with you. I
can't. I want to get free in some way, either by divorce, or a quiet
separation, and go my way. I'm not happy. I never will be as long as I
am here. I want my freedom and then I will decide what I want to do."

Angela shook her head and sighed. She could scarcely believe that this
was she wandering around in her own apartment wondering what she was
going to do in connection with her own husband. Marietta had gone back
to Wisconsin before the storm broke. Myrtle was in New York, but she
hated to confess to her. She did not dare to write to any member of her
own family but Marietta, and she did not want to confess to her.
Marietta had fancied while she was here that they were getting al