t she suddenly broke.
Eugene's big, sympathetic understanding was after all too much for her.
His brooding patience in the midst of her wrath, his innate sorrow for
what he could not or would not help (it was written all over his face),
his very obvious presentation of the fact by his attitude that he knew
that she loved him in spite of this, was too much for her. It was like
beating her hands against a stone. She might kill him and this woman,
whoever she was, but she would not have changed his attitude toward her,
and that was what she wanted. A great torrent of heart-breaking sobs
broke from her, shaking her frame like a reed. She threw her arms and
head upon the kitchen table, falling to her knees, and cried and cried.
Eugene stood there contemplating the wreck he had made of her dreams.
Certainly it was hell, he said to himself; certainly it was. He was a
liar, as she said, a dog, a scoundrel. Poor little Angela! Well, the
damage had been done. What could he do now? Anything? Certainly not. Not
a thing. She was broken--heart-broken. There was no earthly remedy for
that. Priests might shrive for broken laws, but for a broken heart what
remedy was there?

"Angela!" he called gently. "Angela! I'm sorry! Don't cry! Angela!!
Don't cry!"

But she did not hear him. She did not hear anything. Lost in the agony
of her situation, she could only sob convulsively until it seemed that
her pretty little frame would break to pieces.

CHAPTER XXIX

Eugene's feelings on this occasion were of reasonable duration. It is
always possible under such circumstances to take the victim of our
brutalities in our arms and utter a few sympathetic or repentant words.
The real kindness and repentance which consists in reformation is quite
another matter. One must see with eyes too pure to behold evil to do
that. Eugene was not to be reformed by an hour or many hours of agony on
anyone's part. Angela was well within the range of his sympathetic
interests. He suffered with her keenly, but not enough to outrun or
offset his own keen desire for what he considered his spiritual right to
enjoy beauty. What harm did it do, he would have asked himself, if he
secretly exchanged affectionate looks and feelings with Carlotta or any
other woman who fascinated him and in turn was fascinated by him? Could
an affinity of this character really be called evil? He was not giving
her any money which Angela ought to have, or very little. He did not
wan