se she
will fight you, even if I do not? I wish you would stop and think,
Eugene. This is a terrible thing you are doing."

"Think! Think!" he exclaimed savagely and bitterly. "As though I had not
been thinking all these years. Think! Hell! I haven't done anything but
think. I've thought until the soul within me is sick. I've thought until
I wish to God I could stop. I've thought about Mrs. Dale. Don't you
worry about her. I'll settle this matter with her later. Just now I want
to convince you of what I am going to do. I'm going to have Suzanne, and
you're not going to stop me."

"Oh, Eugene," sighed Angela, "if something would only make you see! It
is partially my fault. I have been hard and suspicious and jealous, but
you have given me some cause to be, don't you think? I see now that I
have made a mistake. I have been too hard and too jealous, but I could
reform if you would let me try." (She was thinking now of living, not
dying.) "I know I could. You have so much to lose. Is this change worth
it? You know so well how the world looks at these things. Why, even if
you should obtain your freedom from me under the circumstances, what do
you suppose the world would think? You couldn't desert your child. Why
not wait and see what happens? I might die. There have been such cases.
Then you would be free to do as you pleased. That is only a little way
off."

It was a specious plea, calculated to hold him; but he saw through it.

"Nothing doing!" he exclaimed, in the slang of the day. "I know all
about that. I know what you're thinking. In the first place, I don't
believe you are in the condition you say you are. In the next place,
you're not going to die. I don't propose to wait to be free. I know you,
and I've no faith in you. What I do needn't affect your condition.
You're not going to starve. No one need know, unless you start a row
about it. Suzanne and I can arrange this between ourselves. I know what
you're thinking, but you're not going to interfere. If you do, I'll
smash everything in sight--you, this apartment, my job----" He clenched
his hands desperately, determinedly.

Angela's hands were tingling with nervous pains while Eugene talked. Her
eyes ached and her heart fluttered. She could not understand this dark,
determined man, so savage and so resolute in his manner. Was this Eugene
who was always moving about quietly when he was near her, getting angry
at times, but always feeling sorry and apologizing? Sh