h whom she
was at outs.

"No--with my own," I replied tranquilly.

"_Your_ own!" she sneered. "Every dollar you have has come through what
you got by marrying me--through what you married me for. Where would you
be if you hadn't married me? You know very well. You'd still be fighting
poverty as a small lawyer in Pulaski, married to Betty Crosby or
whatever her name was." And she burst into hysterical tears. At last she
was showing me the secrets that had been tearing at her, was showing me
her heart where they had torn it.

"Probably," said I in my usual tone, when she was calm enough to hear
me. "So, that's what you brood over?"

"Yes," she sobbed. "I've hated you and myself. Why don't you tell me it
isn't so? I'll believe it--I don't want to hear the truth. I know you
don't love me, Harvey. But just say you don't love _her_."

"What kind of middle-aged, maudlin moonshine is this, anyway?" said I.
"Let's go back to Junior. We've passed the time of life when people can
talk sentimentality without being ridiculous."

"That's true of me, Harvey," she said miserably, "but not of you. You
don't look a day over forty--you're still a young man, while I--"

She did not need to complete the sentence. I sat on the bed beside her
and patted her vaguely. She took my hand and kissed it. And I said--I
tried to say it gently, tenderly, sincerely: "People who've been
together, as you and I have, see each other always as at first, they
say."

She kissed my hand gratefully again. "Forgive me for what I said," she
murmured. "You know I didn't think it, really. I've got such a nasty
disposition and I felt so down, and--that was the only thing I could
find to throw at you."

"Please--_please_!" I protested. "Forgive isn't a word that I'd have the
right to use to any one."

"But I must--"

"Now, _I've_ known for years," I went on, "that you were in love with
that other man when I asked you to marry me. I might have taunted you
with it, might have told you how I've saved him from going to jail for
passing worthless checks."

This delighted her--this jealousy so long and so carefully hidden. Under
cover of her delight I escaped from the witness-stand. And the discovery
that evening by Doc Woodruff that my son's ensnarer had a husband living
put her in high good humor. "If he'd only come home," said she, adding:
"Though, now I feel that he's perfectly safe with her."

"Yes--let them alone," I replied. "He has at least one kind