ke this?--you who are situated even
as I am. If we were to die now, in six months it would be as though we
had never been. No one would remember us."

"But what have we done for any one," Beth asked, in her equable way,
"that we should be specially remembered?"

He made no reply, and Beth went on with the sandwiches.

"I thought," he began at last, "I did think that you at least would
understand and feel for me."

Beth stopped eating and considered a moment.

"Are you in any real trouble?" she asked at last.

He rose and began to pace up and down. "I will tell you," he said,
"and leave you to judge for yourself."

Beth looked somewhat ruefully at the tray, and wished that the
conversation had been more suited to the satisfaction of an honest
appetite.

"I have made it plain to you what my marriage is without blaming
anybody," he proceeded. "It is the rock upon which all my hopes were
wrecked. I found my ideal. I won her like a man. I haven't a word to
say against her. She is a woman who might have made any ordinary man
happy; but she has been no help to me. It is not her fault. She has
done her best. And it is not my fault."

"Then whose fault is it?" said Beth; "it must be somebody's. I think
of marriage as I think of life; it is pretty much what people choose
to make it. It does not fail when husband and wife have good
principles, and live up to them; and good manners in private as well
as in public--not to mention high ideals. When we are not happy in the
intimate relations of life, it is generally for some trivial
reason--as often as not because we don't take the trouble to make
ourselves agreeable, as because we fail in other duties. I consider it
a duty to be agreeable. In married life happiness depends on loyalty,
to begin with, the loyalty that will not even let its thoughts stray.
All that we want in everyday intercourse is truth and affection,
kindness, consideration, and unvarying politeness. If people practised
these as a duty from the first, sympathy would eventually come of the
effort. Marriage is the state that develops the noblest qualities, and
that is why happily married people are the best worth knowing, the
most delightful to live amongst. You have no fault to find with your
wife, therefore the fault must be in yourself if you are not happy. Do
your duty like a man, and cure yourself of it."

"It surprises me to hear you talk in that way," he exclaimed, "you who
have suffered so much you