, I was very unhappy, I had brooded over everything so
long. Next, Lanse came back. And that was a godsend."

"Godsend!" said Winthrop, his face darkening.

"Yes. It took me away from you."

"To him."

"You have never understood--I was only the house-keeper--he wished to be
made comfortable, that was all. It was a great deal better for me
there."

"Was it, indeed; you looked so well and happy all that time!" His
joyousness was gone now; anger had come again into his eyes.

"I could not be happy, how could I be? But at least I was safe. Then he
left me that second time. And you were there; that was the hardest of
all."

"You bore it well! I remember I found it impossible to get a word with
you. The truth is, Margaret, I have never known you to falter, you are
not faltering in the least even now. I can't quite believe, therefore,
that you care for me as you say you do; you certainly don't care as I
care for you, perhaps you can't. But the little you do give me is
precious; for even that, small as it is, will keep you from going back
to Lanse Harold."

"Keep me from going back? What do you suppose I have told you this for?
Don't you see that it is exactly this--my feeling for _you_--that sends
me, drives me back to him? On what plea, now, could I refuse to go? The
pretense of unhappiness, of having been wronged?" She paused. Then
rushed on again. "The law--of separation, I mean--is founded upon the
idea that a wife is outraged, insulted, by her husband's desertion; but
in my case Lanse's entire indifference to me, his estrangement--these
have been the most precious possessions I have had! If at any time since
almost the first moment I met you he _had_ come back and asked for
reconciliation, promised to be after that the most faithful of husbands,
what would have become of me? what should I have said? But he did not
ask--he does not now; I can only be profoundly grateful."

"Yes, compare yourself with a man of that sort--do; it's so just!"

"It is perfectly just. I am a woman, surrounded by all a woman's
cowardice and nervousness and fear of being talked about; and he is a
man, and not afraid; but at heart--at _heart_--how much better am I than
he? You do not know--" She stopped. "I consider it a great part of my
offense against my husband that I have never loved him," she added.

"The old story! Go on now and tell me that if you had loved him, he
himself would have been better."

"No, that I cannot tell you;