hing hard.

"You say, I'll never know what love is. Blind! I've always loved you
until this moment, when you killed my love. You say I was untrue. It's
false. I swear it before--you, as you were once,--when you were my
god. Had you trusted me, as I trusted you, there'd have been no
thought of unfaithfulness in your mind."

The woman sank back in the chair, her face covered, her whole body
trembling; but Asa Arnold went on like the storm.

"Yes, I was ever true to you. From the first moment we met, and
against my own beliefs. You didn't see. You expected me to protest it
daily: to repeat the tale as a child repeats its lesson for a comfit.
Blind, I say, blind! You'll charge that I never told you that I loved
you. You wouldn't have believed me, even had I done so. Besides, I
didn't realize that you doubted, until the time when you were
learning--" he walked jerkily across the room and took up his
hat,--"learning the thing you threw in my face." He started to leave,
but stopped in the doorway, without looking back. "You tell me you've
suffered. For the first time in my life I say to another human being:
I hope so." He turned, unsteadily, down the steps.

"Wait," pleaded the woman. "Wait!"

The man did not stop, or turn.

Camilla Maurice sank back in the chair, weak as one sick unto death,
her mind a throbbing, whirling chaos,--as of a patient under an
anaesthetic. Something she knew she ought to do, intended doing, and
could not. She groped desperately, but overwhelming, insistent, there
had developed in her a sudden, preventing tumult--in paradox, a
confusion in rhythm--like the beating of a great hammer on an anvil,
only incredibly more swift than blows from human hands. Over and over
again she repeated to herself the one word: "wait," "wait," "wait,"
but mechanically now, without thought as to the reason. Then, all at
once, soft, all-enfolding, kindly Nature wrapped her in darkness.

She awoke with the big collie licking her hand, and a numbness of
cramped limbs that was positive pain. A long-necked pullet was
standing in the doorway, with her mouth open; others stood wondering,
beyond. The sun had moved until it no longer shone in at the tiny
south windows, and the shadow of the house had begun to lengthen.

Camilla stood up in the doorway; uncertain, dazed. A great lump was on
her forehead, which she stroked absently, without surprise at its
presence. She looked about the yard, and, her breath coming more
qu