id not answer him, and after a moment he came closer to me on the
seat and said almost in a whisper:

"Then think again, Mary. Only give one glance to the horrible life that
is before you when I am gone. You have been married a year . . . only a
year . . . and you have suffered terribly. But there is worse to come.
Your husband's coarse infidelity has been shocking, but there will be
something more shocking than his infidelity--his affection. Have you
never thought of _that_?"

I started and shuddered, feeling as if somebody must have told him the
most intimate secret of my life. Coming still closer he said:

"Forgive me, dear. I'm bound to speak plainly now. If I didn't I should
never forgive myself in the future . . . Listen! Your husband will get
over his fancy for this . . . this woman. He'll throw her off, as he has
thrown off women of the same kind before. What will happen then? He'll
remember that you belong to him . . . that he has rights in you . . .
that you are his wife and he is your husband . . . that the infernal law
which denies you the position of an equal human being gives him a
right--a legal right--to compel your obedience. Have you never thought
of _that_?"

For one moment we looked into each other's eyes; then he took hold of my
hand and, speaking very rapidly, said:

"That's the life that is before you when I am gone--to live with this
man whom you loathe . . . year after year, as long as life lasts . . .
occupying the same house, the same room, the same . . ."

I uttered an involuntary cry and he stopped.

"Martin," I said, "there is something you don't know."

And then, I told him--it was forced out of me--my modesty went down in
the fierce battle with a higher pain, and I do not know whether it was
my pride or my shame or my love that compelled me to tell him, but I
_did_ tell him--God knows how--that I could not run the risk he referred
to because I was not in that sense my husband's wife and never had been.

The light was behind me, and my face was in the darkness; but still I
covered it with my hands while I stammered out the story of my marriage
day and the day after, and of the compact I had entered into with my
husband that only when and if I came to love him should he claim my
submission as a wife.

While I was speaking I knew that Martin's eyes were fixed on me, for I
could feel his breath on the back of my hands, but before I had finished
he leapt up and cried excitedly:

"