believe that you and your friend Jerry are nothing but a
pair of irresponsible children. I should like to have caned him, but I
had nothing but a loaded horse-whip to do it with, so I was obliged to
let him off. Now listen! I am going downstairs and I shall stay there for
exactly half an hour. If between now and the end of that half-hour you
come to me with any good and sufficient reason for letting you go back
and live apart from me in your father's house, I will let you go. You
have asked me to remember that you are my wife. Precisely what you meant
by that you have left me to guess. You will make that request of yours
quite plain to me within the next half-hour."

He relinquished his hold with the words, and would have withdrawn his
hand, but she made a sharp movement to stay him.

"Do you--really--mean that?" she asked him, a catch in her voice, her
head still bent.

"I have said it," he said.

But still with nervous fingers she sought to detain him.

"What--what would you consider a good and sufficient reason?"

The hand she held clenched slowly upon itself.

"If you can convince me," he said, his voice very deep and steady, "that
to desert me would be for your happiness, I will let you go for that."

"But how can I convince you?" she said, her face still hidden from him,
her hands closed tightly upon his wrist.

"You will be able to do so," he said, "if you know your own mind."

"And if--if I fail to satisfy you?" she faltered.

He was silent. After a moment he deliberately freed himself, and turned
away.

"Those are my terms," he said. "If you do not come to me in half an hour
I shall conclude that you leave the decision in my hands--in short, that
you wish to remain my wife. Think well, Anne, before you take action in
this matter. I do not seek to persuade you to either course. Only let me
warn you that, whatever your choice, I shall treat it as final. You must
realize that fully before you choose."

He was at the head of the stairs as he ended. Without a pause he began to
descend, and she counted his footsteps with a wildly beating heart till
they ceased in the room below.

CHAPTER XIV

She was alone. In a silence intense she lifted her head at last, and knew
that for half an hour she was safe from interruption.

Far away over the snow she heard a distant church clock tolling midnight.
It ceased, and in the silence she thought she heard her stretched nerves
cracking one by one. Soon--