sobbed, into her apron. It was childish,
and perhaps true. At least it was true from the childish part of her
nature. He sat gloomy and uneasy.

She took the apron from her tear-stained face, and looked at him. It
was true, in her moments of roused exposure she was a beautiful woman--a
beautiful woman. At this moment, with her flushed, tear-stained, wilful
distress, she was beautiful.

"Tell me," she challenged. "Tell me! Tell me what I've done. Tell me
what you have against me. Tell me."

Watching like a lynx, she saw the puzzled, hurt look in his face.
Telling isn't so easy--especially when the trouble goes too deep for
conscious comprehension. He couldn't _tell_ what he had against her. And
he had not the slightest intention of doing what she would have liked
him to do, starting to pile up detailed grievances. He knew the detailed
grievances were nothing in themselves.

"You CAN'T," she cried vindictively. "You CAN'T. You CAN'T find anything
real to bring against me, though you'd like to. You'd like to be able
to accuse me of something, but you CAN'T, because you know there isn't
anything."

She watched him, watched. And he sat in the chair near the door, without
moving.

"You're unnatural, that's what you are," she cried. "You're unnatural.
You're not a man. You haven't got a man's feelings. You're nasty, and
cold, and unnatural. And you're a coward. You're a coward. You run away
from me, without telling me what you've got against me."

"When you've had enough, you go away and you don't care what you do," he
said, epigrammatic.

She paused a moment.

"Enough of what?" she said. "What have you had enough of? Of me and your
children? It's a nice manly thing to say. Haven't I loved you? Haven't
I loved you for twelve years, and worked and slaved for you and tried to
keep you right? Heaven knows where you'd have been but for me, evil as
you are at the bottom. You're evil, that's what it is--and weak. You're
too weak to love a woman and give her what she wants: too weak. Unmanly
and cowardly, he runs away."

"No wonder," he said.

"No," she cried. "It IS no wonder, with a nature like yours: weak and
unnatural and evil. It IS no wonder."

She became quiet--and then started to cry again, into her apron. Aaron
waited. He felt physically weak.

"And who knows what you've been doing all these months?" she wept. "Who
knows all the vile things you've been doing? And you're the father of my
children--the father