finish.

"No," she said, "you need fear no scandal. There will be nothing in any
way harmful to your--prospects."

"What can I do?" he said, though more to himself than to her. Her quick
ear detected in his voice a note of relief. And yet, he struck in her,
standing helplessly smoking in the middle of the floor, chords of pity.

"You can do nothing, Howard," she said. "If you lived with me from now to
the millennium you couldn't make me love you, nor could you love me--the
way I must be loved. Try to realize it. The wrench is what you dread.
After it is over you will be much more contented, much happier, than you
have been with me. Believe me."

His next remark astonished her.

"What's the use of being so damned precipitate?" he demanded.

"Precipitate!"

"Because I can stand it no longer. I should go mad," she answered.

He took a turn up and down the room, stopped suddenly, and stared at her
with eyes that had grown smaller. Suspicion is slow to seize the
complacent. Was it possible that he had been supplanted?

Honora, with an instinct of what was coming, held up her head. Had he
been angry, had he been a man, how much humiliation he would have spared
her!

"So you're in love!" he said. "I might have known that something was at
the bottom of this."

She took account of and quivered at the many meanings behind his speech
--meanings which he was too cowardly to voice in words.

"Yes," she answered, "I am in love--in love as I never hoped to be--as I
did not think it possible to be. My love is such that I would go through
hell fire for the sake of it. I do not expect you to believe me when I
tell you that such is not the reason why I am leaving you. If you had
loved me with the least spark of passion, if I thought I were in the
least bit needful to you as a woman and as a soul, as a helper and a
confidante, instead of a mere puppet to advertise your prosperity, this
would not--could not--have happened. I love a man who would give up the
world for me to-morrow. I have but one life to live, and I am going to
find happiness if I can."

She paused, afire with an eloquence that had come unsought. But her
husband only stared at her. She was transformed beyond his recognition.
Surely he had not married this woman! And, if the truth be told, down in
his secret soul whispered a small, congratulatory voice. Although he did
not yet fully realize it, he was glad he had not.

Honora, with an involuntary movement, p