cross long enough?
Come, sit down, and let us talk, not of the past, but of the future.
Let us try and make it happier."

He was approaching her as he spoke; and she put out her hands and
waved him away. "Do not dare to come near me!" she cried. "Not one
step further! You shall not put a finger on me. I will not listen to
your voice. Let me go away from your presence."

He sat down, covering his face with his hands, and he was still as a
stone. But Rose felt that he was on guard, and that resistance or
entreaty would be alike useless. So she threw herself on a sofa, shut
her eyes, and began to sing.

The whole appearance and atmosphere of the woman were now repellant;
and a great indignation burned in Antony's heart. He said to himself
that he had done wrong to tolerate so long the evil spirit in his wife
and home. He had forgiven practically what he ought to refuse to
forgive at all. He had encouraged sin by enduring it. And he had done
so because he loved the sinner. "But I shall do what is right in the
future!" he said.

Then he rose up, and Rose, who was watching him from beneath her
nearly closed eyelids, was startled by the new man she saw. He looked
taller, his countenance was stern, and he told the coachman to take
away the carriage in a voice that was quite new to her. But she went
on humming her song, and watching developments. So all the night the
gas burned, and Antony sat guarding his wife, and his wife looked at
him, and sang at him, and paraded herself about the room to irritate
him. But about three o'clock she was very weary, and she fell into a
deep sleep. Then Antony rose and looked at her. Her head was hanging
off the pillow, and one of her feet nearly touched the floor. He
lifted it gently, placed the dear poppy-crowned head comfortably on
the pillow, threw an Afghan over the sleeping form, and with one long
farewell look went quietly out of the room.

The dance was then over, and the bitterest night of his life was
over. He had watched against Indians; he had watched against death in
mines, and camps, and lonely gorges in the mountains; he had watched
the life-breaths of his little daughter pass away, night after night,
in weary painfulness; but such a terrible watch as this one, beside
his wilfully wicked wife, he had never conceived of as possible. He
was weary to death, and her cruel words remained in his heart like
arrows.

He went to his room, and after writing for some time he drank a