d curse perhaps--Instead of that, he
choked, struggled for breath, and shed tears.

Amy turned scornfully away from him. Blows and a curse would have
overawed her, at all events for the moment; she would have felt: 'Yes,
he is a man, and I have put my destiny into his hands.' His tears
moved her to a feeling cruelly exultant; they were the sign of her
superiority. It was she who should have wept, and never in her life had
she been further from such display of weakness.

This could not be the end, however, and she had no wish to terminate
the scene. They stood for a minute without regarding each other, then
Reardon faced to her.

'You refuse to live with me, then?'

'Yes, if this is the kind of life you offer me.'

'You would be more ashamed to share your husband's misfortunes than to
declare to everyone that you had deserted him?'

'I shall "declare to everyone" the simple truth. You have the
opportunity of making one more effort to save us from degradation. You
refuse to take the trouble; you prefer to drag me down into a lower rank
of life. I can't and won't consent to that. The disgrace is yours; it's
fortunate for me that I have a decent home to go to.'

'Fortunate for you!--you make yourself unutterably contemptible. I have
done nothing that justifies you in leaving me. It is for me to judge
what I can do and what I can't. A good woman would see no degradation in
what I ask of you. But to run away from me just because I am poorer than
you ever thought I should be--'

He was incoherent. A thousand passionate things that he wished to say
clashed together in his mind and confused his speech. Defeated in
the attempt to act like a strong man, he could not yet recover
standing-ground, knew not how to tone his utterances.

'Yes, of course, that's how you will put it,' said Amy. 'That's how you
will represent me to your friends. My friends will see it in a different
light.'

'They will regard you as a martyr?'

'No one shall make a martyr of me, you may be sure. I was unfortunate
enough to marry a man who had no delicacy, no regard for my feelings.--I
am not the first woman who has made a mistake of this kind.'

'No delicacy? No regard for your feelings?--Have I always utterly
misunderstood you? Or has poverty changed you to a woman I can't
recognise?'

He came nearer, and gazed desperately into her face. Not a muscle of it
showed susceptibility to the old influences.

'Do you know, Amy,' he added in a lo