k. It looks pretty bad, but I wasn't
married then, and I didn't care so very much for these people--not as
much as you think; really I didn't. It may look that way to you, but I
didn't."

"Didn't care!" sneered Angela, all at once, flaring up. "Didn't care! It
looks as though you didn't care, with one of them calling you Honey Boy
and Adonis, and the other saying she wishes she were dead. A fine time
you'd have convincing anyone that you didn't care. And I out in
Blackwood at that very time, longing and waiting for you to come, and
you up in the mountains making love to another woman. Oh, I know how
much you cared. You showed how much you cared when you could leave me
out there to wait for you eating my heart out while you were off in the
mountains having a good time with another woman. 'Dear E--,' and
'Precious Honey Boy,' and 'Adonis'! That shows how much you cared,
doesn't it!"

Eugene stared before him helplessly. Her bitterness and wrath surprised
and irritated him. He did not know that she was capable of such an awful
rage as showed itself in her face and words at this moment, and yet he
did not know but that she was well justified. Why so bitter though--so
almost brutal? He was sick. Had she no consideration for him?

"I tell you it wasn't as bad as you think," he said stolidly, showing
for the first time a trace of temper and opposition. "I wasn't married
then. I did like Christina Channing; I did like Ruby Kenny. What of it?
I can't help it now. What am I going to say about it? What do you want
me to say? What do you want me to do?"

"Oh," whimpered Angela, changing her tone at once from helpless accusing
rage to pleading, self-commiserating misery. "And you can stand there
and say to me 'what of it'? What of it! What of it! What shall you say?
What do you think you ought to say? And me believing that you were so
honorable and faithful! Oh, if I had only known! If I had only known! I
had better have drowned myself a hundred times over than have waked and
found that I wasn't loved. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I don't know what I ought
to do! I don't know what I can do!"

"But I do love you," protested Eugene soothingly, anxious to say or do
anything which would quiet this terrific storm. He could not imagine how
he could have been so foolish as to leave these letters lying around.
Dear Heaven! What a mess he had made of this! If only he had put them
safely outside the home or destroyed them. Still he had wanted to