ain
congested, and her complexion, which was naturally pale and
transparent, all flushed or blotched with streaks of crimson.

"What's the matter with your face?" Dan said to her one day, apt, as
usual, to comment offensively on anything wrong.

"I should like you to tell me," Beth answered.

"You'd better take some citrate of iron and quinine."

"You've prescribed citrate of iron and quinine for everything I've
ever had since I knew you," said Beth. "If I have any more of it, I
shall be like the man in the quack advertisement, who felt he could
conscientiously recommend a tonic because he had taken it for fourteen
years. I should like something that would act a little quicker."

Dan left the room and banged the door.

That afternoon Beth, up in her shrine at work, suddenly began to
wonder what he was doing. As a rule, she did not trouble herself about
his pursuits, but now all at once she became anxious. The thought of
all the unholy places that he might be at (and the unfortunate girl
knew all about all of them, for there was no horror of life with which
her husband had not made her acquainted), filled her with dread--with
a sensation entirely new to her, and absolutely foreign to her normal
nature. Her feeling for Dan and Bertha, when she discovered their
treachery, had been one of contempt. Their disloyalty, and the petty
mean deceits which it entailed, made it difficult to tolerate their
presence, and she was always glad to get rid of them, wherever they
might go. Now, however, she was seized upon with a kind of rage at the
recollection of their intrigue, of the scene in the garden, the
glances she had intercepted, their stolen interviews, clandestine
correspondence, and impudent security. It was all retrospective this
feeling, but the torment of it was none the less acute for that. She
recalled the scene in the garden, and her heart throbbed with anger.
She regretted her own temperate conduct, and imagined herself stealing
out upon them, standing before them, and pouring forth floods of
invective till they cowered. She wished she had refused to let Bertha
enter the house again, and had threatened to expose Dan if he did not
meekly submit to her dictation. She ought to have exposed him too. She
should have gone to Bertha's mother. But where was Dan at that moment?
She jumped up, rushed down to her room, put on her outdoor things in
hot haste, and ran downstairs determined to go and see; but as she
entered th