's the same
thing over again--there's no use talking about it. I shall die."

"You cannot--you cannot," protested Laura, still holding her in her
arms. "You are too beautiful. You were never in your life lovelier than
you are to-day."

"And yet it does not hold him," broke out Gerty, in sudden passion, "and
it will never be any better, I see that. If it's not one it's another,
but it's always somebody. A year ago he promised me that I should never
have cause for jealousy again--he swore that and I believed him--and now
this--this--"

Her anger choked her like a sob, and she tore with trembling fingers at
the papers in her lap. Then suddenly her brow contracted with
resolution, and she went through a long list of items as if the most
important fact in life were the amount of money she must pay to her
dressmaker.

"Of course you know what I think," murmured Laura with her lips at
Gerty's ear.

"That he isn't worth it," Gerty nodded, while her indignant and
humiliated expression grew almost violent. "Well, I think so, too. Of
course he isn't, but that doesn't make it any better--any easier."

"You mean you couldn't give him up?"

"When I'm dead I may, not before." She closed her eyes and a long
shudder ran through her body. "It has been nothing but a fight since I
married--a fight to keep him. I used to think that marriage meant rest,
contentment, but I know now that it means a battle--all the time--every
instant. I've never had one natural moment, I've never since the
beginning been without a horrible suspicion--and I see now that I never
shall be. He likes me best I know--in his heart he really puts me
first--but there are others and I won't have it. I'll be alone, I'll be
the only one or nothing. I said I wouldn't be beaten the first time, and
I won't--I won't be beaten." She paused an instant to draw breath. "And
I haven't been," she wound up in bitter triumph.

"You'll never be, darling," declared Laura; "who is there on earth to
shine against you?"

The violence faded from Gerty's face, yielding to an expression of
disgust, of spiritual loathing--the loathing of a creature that hates
the thing it loves.

"But it isn't worth it, it isn't worth it," she moaned, pushing the
papers away from her with an indignant gesture, and rising from her
chair to walk hurriedly up and down the floor. "It isn't worth it, but
I'm bound to it--I can't get away. I'm bound to the wheel. Do you think
if I could help myself--i