ose, you are tired of
her--and I am to believe that you cared for me!"

"I don't expect you to believe it. It's the fact, all the same. I
wouldn't have left you if I hadn't been hopelessly in love with you. You
mayn't know it, and I don't suppose you'd understand it if you did, but
that was the trouble. It was the trouble all along, ever since I married
you. I know I've been unfaithful to you, but I never loved any one but
you. Consider how we've been living, you and I, for the last six
years--can you say that I put another woman in your place?"

She looked at him with her sad, uncomprehending eyes; her hands made a
hopeless, helpless gesture.

"You know what you have done," she said presently. "And you know that it
was wrong."

"Yes, it was wrong. But the whole thing was wrong. Wrong from the
beginning. How are we going to make it right?"

"I don't know, Walter. We must do our best."

"Yes, but what are we going to do? What are you going to do?"

"I have told you that I am not going to leave you."

"We are to go on, then, as we did before?"

"Yes--as far as possible."

"Then," he said, "we shall still be all wrong. Can't you see it? Can't
you see _now_ that it's all wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our life. Yours and mine. Are you going to begin again like that?"

"Does it rest with me?"

"Yes. It rests with you, I think. You say we must make the best of it.
What is your notion of the best?"

"I don't know, Walter."

"I _must_ know. You say you'll take me back--you'll never leave me. What
are you taking me back to? Not to that old misery? It wasn't only bad for
me, dear. It was bad for both of us."

She sighed, and her sigh shuddered to a sob in her throat. The sound went
to his heart and stirred in it a passion of pity.

"God knows," he said, "I'd live with you on any terms. And I'll keep
straight. You needn't be afraid. Only--See here. There's no reason why
you shouldn't take me back. I wouldn't ask you to if I'd left off caring
for you. But it wasn't there I went wrong. I can't explain about Maggie.
You wouldn't understand. But, if you'd only try to, we might get along.
There's nothing that I won't do for you to make up--"

"You can do nothing. There are things that cannot be made up for."

"I know--I know. But still--we mightn't be so unhappy--perhaps, in
time--And if we had children--"

"Never," she cried sharply, "never!"

He had not stirred in his chair where he sat bowed and dejected.