the worst of me; from this day you will hate
me."

"I am not sure," replied Cecily, "that you haven't some strange
pleasure in what you have been telling me; but I know you are very
unhappy, and that alone would prevent me from hating you. I can't be
your friend, it is true; we are too unlike in our tempers and habits of
thought Let us shake hands and say good-bye."

But Mrs. Travis refused her hand, and with a look of bitter suffering,
which tried to appear resignation, went from the room.

Cecily felt a cold burden upon her heart. She sat in a posture of
listlessness, corresponding to the weary misery, numbing instead of
torturing, which possessed her now that the shock was over. Perhaps the
strange manner of the revelation tended to produce this result; the
strong self-control which she had exercised, the mingling of
incongruous emotions, the sudden end of her expectation, brought about
a mood resembling apathy.

She began presently to reflect, to readjust her view of the life she
had been living. It seemed to her now unaccountable that she had been
so little troubled with fears. Ignorance of the world had not blinded
her, nor was she unaware of her husband's history. But the truth was
that she had not cared to entertain suspicion. For a long time she had
not seriously occupied her mind with Reuben. Self-absorbed, she was
practically content to let happen what would, provided it called for no
interference of hers. Her indifference had reached the point of idly
accepting the present, and taking for granted that things would always
be much the same.

Yet she knew the kind of danger to which Reuben was exposed from the
hour when her indifference declared itself; it was present to her
imagination when he chose to remain alone in London. But such thoughts
were vague, impalpable. She had never realized a picture of such
degradation as this which had just stamped itself upon her brain. In
her surmises jealousy had no part, and therefore nothing was conceived
in detail. In the certainty that he no longer loved her with love of
the nobler kind, did it matter much what he concealed? But this
flagrant shame had never threatened her. This was indeed the
"experience" in which, as Reuben had insisted, she was lacking.

No difficulty in understanding now why he kept away. Would he ever
come? Or had he determined that their life in common was no longer
possible, and resolved to spare her the necessity of saying that they
wer