permitted him.

So, when he found his flannels in the boot cupboard, he came and flung
them onto the table where Aggie bent over her ironing-board. A feeble fury
shook him.

"Nobody but a fool," he said, "would ram good flannels into a filthy boot
cupboard."

"I didn't," said Aggie, in a strange, uninterested voice. "You must have
put them there yourself."

He remembered.

"Well," he said, placably, for he was, after all, a just man, "do you
think they could be made a little cleaner?"

"I--can't--" said Aggie, in a still stranger voice, a voice that sounded
as if it were deflected somehow by her bent body and came from another
woman rather far away. It made Arthur turn in the doorway and look at her.
She rose, straightening herself slowly, dragging herself upward from the
table with both hands. Her bleached lips parted; she drew in her breath
with a quick sound like a sob, and let it out again on a sharp note of
pain.

He rushed to her, all his sunken manhood roused by her bitter, helpless
cry.

"Aggie, darling, what is it? Are you ill?"

"No, no, I'm not ill; I'm only tired," she sobbed, clutching at him with
her two hands, and swaying where she stood.

He took her in his arms and half dragged, half carried her from the room.
On the narrow stairs they paused.

"Let me go alone," she whispered.

She tried to free herself from his grasp, failed, and laid her head back
on his shoulder again; and he lifted her and carried her to her bed.

He knelt down and took off her shoes. He sat beside her, supporting her
while he let down her long, thin braids of hair. She looked up at him, and
saw that there was still no knowledge in the frightened eyes that gazed at
her; and when he would have unfastened the bodice of her gown, she pushed
back his hands and held them.

"No, no," she whimpered. "Go away. Go away."

"Aggie--"

"Go away, I tell you."

"My God," he moaned, more smitten, more helpless than she. For, as she
turned from him, he understood the height and depth of her tender perjury.
She had meant to spare him for as long as it might be, because, afterwards
(she must have felt), his own conscience would not be so merciful.

He undressed her, handling her with his clumsy gentleness, and laid her in
her bed.

He had called the maid; she went bustling to and fro, loud-footed and
wild-eyed. From time to time a cry came from the nursery where the little
ones were left alone. Outside, down the street, Art