l sit there smoking your
pipe and catching dabs!"

"Do you know you are almost offensive, Philippa?" her husband said
quietly.

"I want to be," she retorted. "I should like you to feel that I am. In
any case, this will probably be the last conversation I shall hold with
you on the subject."

"Well, thank God for that, anyway!" he observed, strolling to the
chimneypiece and selecting a pipe from a rack. "I think you've said
about enough."

"I haven't finished," she told him ominously.

"Then for heaven's sake get on with it and let's have it over," he
begged.

"Oh, you're impossible!" Philippa exclaimed bitterly. "Listen. I give
you one chance more. Tell me the truth? Is there anything in your
health of which I do not know? Is there any possible explanation of your
extraordinary behaviour which, for some reason or other, you have kept
to yourself? Give me your whole confidence."

Sir Henry, for a moment, was serious enough. He stood looking down at
her a little wistfully.

"My dear," he told her, "I have nothing to say except this. You are my
very precious wife. I have loved you and trusted you since the day of
our marriage. I am content to go on loving and trusting you, even though
things should come under my notice which I do not understand. Can't you
accept me the same way?"

Philippa, momentarily uneasy, was nevertheless rebellious.

"Accept you the same way? How can I! There is nothing in my life to
compare in any way with the tragedy of your--"

She paused, as though unwilling to finish the sentence. He waited
patiently, however, for her to proceed.

"Of my what?"

Philippa compromised.

"Lethargy," she pronounced triumphantly.

"An excellent word," he murmured.

"It is too mild a one, but you are my husband," she remarked.

"That reminds me," he said quietly. "You are my wife."

"I know it," she admitted, "but I am also a woman, and there are limits
to my endurance. If you can give me no explanation of your behaviour,
Henry, if you really have no intention of changing it, then there is
only one course left open for me."

"That sounds rather alarming--what is it?" he demanded.

Philippa lifted her head a little. This was the pronouncement towards
which she had been leading.

"From to-day," she declared, "I cease to be your wife."

His fingers paused in the manipulation of the tobacco with which he was
filling his pipe. He turned and looked at her.

"You what?"

"I cease to be your