simple thing to do," he added
slowly. "You see, you're a part of me. At least, that's what I've come to
feel. And how can a man go away from himself? How can a part of a man go
away and leave the other part?" He lifted his fists and smote his breast
until his whole body shook. And then he leaned forward, his elbows on the
arms of his chair, his hands clasped before him. He was staring into
vacancy. He aroused himself after a time. "Of course, I'll have to go," he
said. He seemed to have become clear on that one point. And then he flung
himself back in his chair and thrust his arms out before him. "What were
you driving at, Sylvia?" he asked.

"Driving at...?"

"I hadn't done you any harm. Why did you marry me, if you didn't love
me?"

"I do love you!" She spoke with an intensity which disturbed him.

"Ah, you mean--you did?"

"I mean I do!"

He arose dejectedly with the air of a man who finds it useless to make any
further effort. "We'll not talk about it, then," he said. He turned toward
the door.

"I do love you," she repeated. She arose and took a step toward him,
though her limbs were trembling so that they seemed unable to sustain her
weight. "Harboro!" she called as he laid his hand on the door. "Harboro! I
want you to listen to me." She sank back into her chair, and Harboro
turned and faced her again wonderingly.

"If you'd try to understand," she pleaded. "I'm not going to ask you to
stay. I only want you to understand." She would not permit her emotions to
escape bounds. Something that was courageous and honorable in her forbade
her to appeal to his pity alone; something that was shrewd in her warned
her that such a course would be of no avail.

"You see, I was what people call a bad woman when you first met me.
Perhaps you know that now?"

"Go on," he said.

"But that's such a silly phrase--_a bad woman_. Do you suppose I ever felt
like a _bad woman_--until now? Even now I can't realize that the words
belong to me, though I know that according to the rules I've done you a
bad turn, Harboro."

She rocked in silence while she gained control over her voice.

"What you don't know," she said finally, "is how things began for me, in
those days back in San Antonio, when I was growing up. It's been bad luck
with me always; or if you don't believe in luck, then everything has been
a kind of trick played on me from the beginning. Not by anybody--I don't
mean that. But by something bigger. There's the wo