d, she seemed to him austere in her purity and her rebellion
against these bitter facts. There was no hesitation and no shame. She
had only wrong to remember, not willful sin. One thing he had to know.
He asked his question. "Was Fulton--kind to you?"

"At first. Not at the last."

"How was he--not kind?"

That, too, she was apparently thinking out.

"I can hardly tell you," she said at length. "He seemed to hate me."

"You!"

"I have seen the same thing twice, with other men and other women. You
see, it was a terrible blow to him--his vanity, his pride--to stop
loving me."

"I don't understand."

"You may not, ever. But he had had unworthy things in his life,
attachments, those that last a short time. When he cared for me, he
thought he cared tremendously. He believed it would last. But it didn't.
He had nothing left to give me."

"He had gambled it away!"

"I think it hurt his pride. He could only justify himself
unconsciously--it was all unconscious--by finding fault with me. By
proving I was not worthy to be loved. Do you see?"

"You are a strange woman to have guessed that. You must be very clever."

"No, oh, no! It was because I thought so hard about it. For a long time,
night after night, I thought of nothing else. When it died--what he
called love--I thought the world died, too."

"My dear good child!"

"When he was dead, what was I to do? I thought I should sing. But my
father was coming from the East with another suitor, the prince. The
prince had seen me here and there for a couple of years. I had always
been known as Madam Fulton. I called myself so at first, proudly,
honestly. Then other people called me so, and even when I had left him,
I let them do it. Peter stepped in then, honest Peter in his ignorance.
He wondered why I didn't come here to Tom's people. Electra was a kind
of goddess. I came. That is all." She paused.

Osmond spoke musingly.

"So you were not his wife! And Electra knew it."

"She did not know it."

"But she suspected it. She refused to own you."

"She suspected me because she knew Tom too well. I believe he had
shocked her and frightened her until his world was all evil to her.
There was another reason." This was a woman's reason, and she was
ashamed to have put her finger on it. Electra's proud possession of her
lover and her instant revolt at his new partisanship, what was it but
crude jealousy? Yet there were many things she could not even dimly
understand