e said; "I'm not sure that you
are going to get what I mean exactly, but you and I are not at all well
suited to each other any more."

"You didn't seem to think that three or four years ago," interrupted his
wife, bitterly.

"I married you when I was twenty-one," went on Cowperwood, quite
brutally, not paying any attention to her interruption, "and I was
really too young to know what I was doing. I was a mere boy. It doesn't
make so much difference about that. I am not using that as an excuse.
The point that I am trying to make is this--that right or wrong,
important or not important, I have changed my mind since. I don't love
you any more, and I don't feel that I want to keep up a relationship,
however it may look to the public, that is not satisfactory to me. You
have one point of view about life, and I have another. You think your
point of view is the right one, and there are thousands of people who
will agree with you; but I don't think so. We have never quarreled about
these things, because I didn't think it was important to quarrel about
them. I don't see under the circumstances that I am doing you any great
injustice when I ask you to let me go. I don't intend to desert you or
the children--you will get a good living-income from me as long as I
have the money to give it to you--but I want my personal freedom when
I come out of here, if ever I do, and I want you to let me have it. The
money that you had and a great deal more, once I am out of here, you
will get back when I am on my feet again. But not if you oppose me--only
if you help me. I want, and intend to help you always--but in my way."

He smoothed the leg of his prison trousers in a thoughtful way, and
plucked at the sleeve of his coat. Just now he looked very much like
a highly intelligent workman as he sat here, rather than like the
important personage that he was. Mrs. Cowperwood was very resentful.

"That's a nice way to talk to me, and a nice way to treat me!" she
exclaimed dramatically, rising and walking the short space--some two
steps--that lay between the wall and the bed. "I might have known that
you were too young to know your own mind when you married me. Money,
of course, that's all you think of and your own gratification. I don't
believe you have any sense of justice in you. I don't believe you ever
had. You only think of yourself, Frank. I never saw such a man as you.
You have treated me like a dog all through this affair; and all the