I
missed one day?"

"_Why did I?_" cry I, eagerly. "Because--"

Then I stop suddenly. How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real
reason?

"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap
your own sowing, you are _surprised--miserably surprised_!"

"I am!" cry I, incoherently. "You may not believe me, but it is true--as
true as that God is above us, and that I never, _never_ was tired of
Roger!"

I stop, choked with sobs.

"Yes," he says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may,
you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing _joy_ at
his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to
covet, and which, but for him, _might_--yes, say what you please, deny
it as much as you like--_would_ have been mine!"

"It _never_ would!" cry I, passionately. "If you had been the last man
in the world--if we had been left together on a desert island--I _never_
should have liked you, _never_! I _never_ would have seen more of you
than I could help! There is _no one_ whose society I grow so soon tired
of. I have said so over and over again to the boys."

"Have you?"

"What good reason can you give me for preferring you to him?" I ask, my
voice trembling and quivering with a passionate indignation; "I am here,
ready to listen to you if you can! How are you such a desirable
substitute for him? Are you nobler? cleverer? handsomer?
unselfisher?--if you are" (laughing bitterly), "you keep it mighty well
hid."

No reply: not a syllable.

"It is a _lie_," I cry, with growing vehemence, "a vile, base,
groundless lie, to say that I am not glad he is coming back! Barbara
knows--they _all_ know how I have been _wearying_ for him all these
months. I was not _in love_, as you call it, when I married him--often I
have told him that--and perhaps at Dresden I missed the boys a
little--he knows that too--he understands! but now--_now_--" (clasping
my hands upon my heart, and looking passionately upward with streaming
eyes), "I want no one--_no one_ but him! I wish for nothing better than
to have _him--him only_!--and to-day, until I met _you_--till you made
me loathe myself and you, and every living thing--it seemed to me as if
all the world had suddenly grown bright and happy and good at the news
of his coming."

Still he is silent.

"Even if I had not liked _him_," pursue I, finding words come quickly
enough now, and speaking with indignant volubility, as, havin