would you feel?"

[Sidenote: Suppose There Is Another Woman]

He shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "I admit it, but I'm willing to pay
the price. I'll feel like a cad all the rest of my life, if I must, in
order to have you."

"If a man has no self-respect," she retorted, "what can he expect from
his----"

"Wife," breathed Alden, in a rapturous whisper. "Oh, Edith, say you
will!"

She turned away, for she could not force herself to meet his eyes. Her
little white hands clasped the edge of the table tightly.

"Have you thought of this?" he continued. "Suppose, for him, there is
another woman----"

"There isn't," she denied. "I know that."

"Perhaps not in the sense you mean, but if he were free----?"

Edith drew a long breath. "I never thought of that."

Steadily the man pursued his advantage. "There must be some reason for
his treating you as he does--for making you miserable. If, for any cause
whatever, he wanted his freedom, would it make--any difference to you?"

She tapped her foot restlessly upon the floor. The atmosphere was
surcharged with expectancy, then grew tense with waiting. Alden's eyes
never swerved from her face.

[Sidenote: What Right?]

"Have you any right, through principles of your own, which I thoroughly
understand and respect, to keep a man bound who desires to be free?"

She swayed back and forth unsteadily. Alden assisted her to her chair
and stood before her as she sat with her elbows upon her knees, her face
hidden in her hands. With the precise observation one accords to trifles
in moments of unendurable stress, he noted that two of the hooks which
fastened her gown at the back of her neck had become unfastened and that
the white flesh showed through the opening.

"If," said Alden, mercilessly, "he longs for his freedom, and the law
permits him to take it, have you the right to force your principles upon
him--and thus keep him miserable when he might otherwise be happy?"

The clock in the hall struck ten. The sound died into silence and the
remorseless tick-tick went on. Outside a belated cricket fiddled bravely
as he fared upon his way. The late moon flooded the room with light.

"Have you?" demanded Alden. He endeavoured to speak calmly, but his
voice shook. "Answer me!"

Edith leaned back in her chair, white and troubled. "I don't know," she
murmured, with lips that scarcely moved. "Before God, I don't know!"

[Sidenote: Advantages of a Letter]

The man went on pitil