as a squint in her
walk. Her boots have a bias outwards. I'm getting bow-legged, so I
am, slewing round corners after her. I'll have to put my foot down,"
said he.

And now it was all finished. Here was twelve o'clock at night and an
absent wife--a detestable combination. Twelve o'clock at night outside
a house is an immoral hour, inside a house it is non-moral, but
respectable. There is nothing in the street at that time but dubiety.
Who would be a husband listening through the tolling of midnight for a
muffled footfall?--And he had told her not to go: had given an order,
formulated his imperative and inflexible will--

"Never mind! I'll stand by it," said he, "this is the last straw. One
break and then freedom. Surgery is better than tinkering. Cut the
knot and let who will try to join it then. One pang, and afterwards
ease, fresh air, and freedom: fresh air! gulps of it, with the head
back and an easy mind. I'm not the man to be fooled for ever--surgery!
surgery!"

His wife had wished to see a friend that night and requested her
husband to go with her--he refused--

"You're always trapsin about," said he.

She entreated.

He heaved an angry forehead at her, puckered an eye, toned a long No
that wagged vibration behind it like an undocked tail.

She persisted, whereupon he loosed his thunder--

"You're not to step outside the house this night, ma'am," said he; and
to her angry "I will go," he barked, "If you do go, don't come back
here. I'll have a dutiful wife or I'll have none--stay in or stay out.
I'm tired humouring your whimsies, let you humour mine now----"

Then a flame gathered on her face, it grew hot in her voice, flashed to
a point in her eyes--

"I'm going out to-night," said she loudly; "are you coming with me?"

"I'm not," said he.

"Then," she snapped, "I'll go by myself."

"Wherever you go to-night you can stay," he roared. "Don't come back
to this house."

"I'm not mad enough to want to," she replied. "I wish I'd never seen
your old house. I wish I'd never seen yourself. You are just as dull
as your house is, and nearly as flat. It's a stupid, uninteresting,
slow house, so it is, and you are a stupid, dissatisfied grump of a
man, so you are. I'd sooner live in a cave with a hairy bear, so I
would----" and out she ran.

Two minutes later he had heard the door bang, and then silence.

That was five hours ago, and during all these long hours he had sat
staring sourly into the fire,