"

As he laboured painfully to explain, without explaining, her face faded
like a sunny landscape when a wet fog crawls over it. For, Francie
though it was, she loved him--she loved him all she knew.

"Guthrie," she moaned piteously, "have you left off caring for me?"

"No, Francie. Of course I haven't."

"Have you--while I have been away, and in so much trouble--been putting
another woman in my place?"

"Certainly not."

"Is it that you don't like to live on his money, Guthrie?"

"I should NOT like to live on it--decidedly not. But the fact is, I
haven't given the money a thought." "Then why--why are you like this?"

"I'll tell you, Francie--I'll tell you plainly. It seems infernally
brutal--but I'm sure you know I wouldn't say a thing to hurt you if I
could help it."

"Oh, go on!"

There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all
firelight in her eyes.

"It is this, dear--don't try to take your hands away, I am going to
keep them; I must have you listen to me till I've quite done--it is
this, Francie: Love, as we very well know--I mean our sort of love--is
one thing, and marriage another--"

"WHAT? Oh, is THAT it? Ah, ah! I see now."

"Take your own case," said he, with a relentless air. "Haven't you
proved it up to the hilt?"

"Proved what?"

"That marriage is a failure."

"Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I
blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know a thing
about it. That is not saying it would be a failure now."

"It would be a dead failure, Francie. I am absolutely convinced of it."

"Because you have grown tired of me! Because somebody else has got hold
of you behind my back! Because--oh, because you men are all alike,
thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman's
life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the
useless skin--without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless,
treacherous--"

"Hush, Francie! Don't talk rubbish. I may be like other men--I've no
doubt I am--but I'm not all that. When I make an engagement, I keep it.
When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best to
fulfil them. Most men do--decent men; but they never have justice done
them in these cases."

"In these cases!" she echoed scornfully. "Everybody knows what their
conduct is in these cases. The world is well used to it. Oh, I ought to
have known--if I hadn't been the most incr