no need for you to keep
silence about me when you see her; what has happened can't be hidden. I
thought it possible that Reuben might have written and told her. If she
comes here, I shall welcome her, but it is better for me not to seek
her first."

"If he writes to her," asked Eleanor, with a grave look, "is it likely
that he will try to defend himself?"

"I understand you. You mean, defend himself by throwing blame of one
kind or another on me. No, that is impossible. He has no desire to do
that. What makes our relations to each other so hopeless, is that we
can be so coldly just. In me there is no resentment left, and in him no
wish to disguise his own conduct. We are simply nothing to each other.
I appreciate all the good in him and all the evil; and to him my own
qualities are equally well known. We have reached the point of studying
each other in a mood of scientific impartiality--surely the most
horrible thing in man and wife."

Eleanor had a sense of relief in hearing that last comment. For the
tone of the speech put her painfully in mind of that which
characterizes certain French novelists all very well in its place, but
on Cecily's lips an intolerable discord. It was as though the girl's
spirit had been materialized by Parisian influences; yet the look and
words with which she ended did away with, or at least mitigated, that
fear.

"He is pursued by a fate," murmured the listener.

"Listen to my defence;" said Cecily, after a pause, with more
earnestness. "For I have not been blameless throughout. Before we left
London, he charged me with contributing to what had befallen us, and in
a measure he was right. He said that I had made no effort to keep him
faithful to me that I had watched the gulf growing between us with
indifference, and allowed him to take his own course. A jealous and
complaining wife, he said, would have behaved more for his good.
Hearing this, I recognized its truth. I had held myself too little
responsible. When our life in Paris began, I resolved that I would
accept my duties in another spirit I did all that a wife can do to
strengthen the purer part in him. I interested myself in whatever he
undertook; I suggested subjects of study which I thought congenial to
him and studied them together with him, putting aside everything of my
own for which he did not care. And for a time I was encouraged by
seeming success. He was grateful to me, and I found my one pleasure in
this absolute dev