er steadily,
returned with amazing candidness: "I'm not going to lie to you. You're
perfectly welcome to know what's in my mind. I love her with every
beat of my heart--she has brought something new into my life, something
sacred--you've always thought I cared for nothing but work, that all I
lived for was to plan and scheme how to make money. Haven't you? I don't
blame you. It's what I've always believed, but tonight I've learned
something." Mrs. Wade could see his blood quicken. "She has been in this
house only a few days and already I am alive with a new fire. It
seems as if these hours are the only ones in which I have ever really
lived--nothing else matters. Nothing! If there could be the slightest
chance of my winning her love, of making her feel as I am feeling now,
I'd build my world over again even if I had to tear all of the old
one down." Martin was now talking to himself, oblivious to his wife's
presence, indifferent to her. "Happiness is waiting for me with her,
with my little flower."

"Your Rose of Sharon?" Her tone was biting.

"If only I could say that! My Rose of Sharon!" It seemed to Mrs. Wade
that the very room quivered with his low cry that was almost a groan. "I
know what you're thinking," he went on, "but you know I have never loved
you. You knew it when I married you, you must have." The twisting
agony of it--that he could make capital out of the very crux of all her
suffering. "I have never deceived you and I never intend to. My life
with you hasn't been a Song of Solomon, but I'm not complaining."

"You're not complaining! I hope I won't start complaining, Martin."

"Well, now you know how I feel. I'll go on with the present arrangement
between us, but I'm playing square with you--it's because there's no
hope for me. If I thought she cared for me, I would go to her, right
now, tonight, and pour out my heart to her, wife or no wife. Oh, Rose,
have pity! It can't do you any harm if I drink a little joy--don't spoil
her faith in me! Don't frighten her away. I can't bear the thought of
her going out into the world to work. She's like a gentle little doe
feeding on lilies--she doesn't dream of the pitfalls ahead of her. And
she will never know--she doesn't even suspect how I feel towards her.
She will meet some young fellow in town and marry. I'm too old for
her--but Rose, you don't understand what it means to me to have her in
the same house, to know that she is sleeping so near, so beautiful, s