u."

She turned from him, looking before her at the Bouddha, but not as if
she saw it. "We shall never speak of it again," she said. "I am going to
leave you, Gregory."

For a moment he stared at her. Then he smiled. "You mustn't punish me
for telling you the truth, Karen, by silly threats."

"I do not punish you. You have done rightly to tell me the truth. But I
cannot live with a man who believes these things."

She still gazed at the Bouddha and again Gregory stared at her. His face
hardened. "Don't be absurd, Karen. You cannot mean what you say."

"I am going to-night. Now," said Karen.

"Going? Where?"

"To Cornwall, back to my guardian. She will take care of me again. I
will not live with you."

"If you really mean what you say," said Gregory, after a moment, "you
are telling me that you don't love me. I've suspected it for some time."

"I feel as if that were true," said Karen, looking now down upon the
ground. "I think I have no more love for you. I find you a petty man."
It was impossible to hope that she was speaking recklessly or
passionately. She had come to the conclusion with deliberation; she had
been thinking of it since last night. She was willing to cast him off
because he could not love where she loved. How deeply the roots of hope
still knotted themselves in him he was now to realize. He felt his heart
and mind rock with the reverberation of the shattering, the pulverizing
explosion, and he saw his life lying in a wilderness of dust about him.

Yet the words he found were not the words of his despair. "Even if you
feel like this, Karen," he said, "there is no necessity for behaving
like a lunatic. Go and stay with your guardian, by all means, and
whenever you like. Start to-morrow morning. Spend most of your time with
her. I shall not put the smallest difficulty in your way. But--if only
for your own sake--have some common-sense and keep up appearances. You
must remain my wife in name and the mistress of my house."

"Thank you, you mean to be kind, I know," said Karen, who had not looked
at him since her declaration; "But I am not a conventional woman and I
do not wish to live with a man who is no longer my husband. I do not
wish to keep up appearances. I do not wish it to be said--by those who
know my guardian and what she has done for me and been to me--that I
keep up the appearance of regard for a man who hates her. I made a
mistake in marrying you; you allowed me to make it. Now, as f