he is happy,-he
doesn't need me. He'll be much more--contented without me. I have nothing
against him. I was to blame for marrying him, I know. But I have only one
life to live, and I can't throw it away, Peter, I can't. And I can't
believe that a woman and a man were intended to live together without
love. It is too horrible. Surely that isn't your idea of marriage!"

"My idea of marriage isn't worth very much, I'm afraid," he said. "If I
talked about it, I should have to confine myself to theories and--and
dreams."

"The moment I saw your card, Peter, I knew why you had come here," she
said, trying to steady her voice. "It was to induce me to go back to my
husband. You don't know how it hurts me to give you pain. I love you--I
love you as I love Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary. You are a part of me. But oh,
you can't understand! I knew you could not. You have never made any
mistakes--you have never lived. It is useless. I won't go back to him. If
you stayed here for weeks you could not make me change my mind."

He was silent.

"You think that I could have prevented--this, if I had been less
selfish," she said.

"Where you are concerned, Honora, I have but one desire," he answered,
"and that is to see you happy--in the best sense of the term. If I could
induce you to go back and give your husband another trial, I should
return with a lighter heart. You ask me whether I think you have been
selfish. I answer frankly that I think you have. I don't pretend to say
your husband has not been selfish also. Neither of you have ever tried,
apparently, to make your marriage a success. It can't be done without an
honest effort. You have abandoned the most serious and sacred enterprise
in the world as lightly as though it had been a piece of embroidery. All
that I can gather from your remarks is that you have left your husband
because you have grown tired of him."

"Yes," said Honora, "and you can never realize how tired, unless you knew
him as I did. When love dies, it turns into hate."

He rose, and walked to the other end of the room, and turned.

"Could you be induced," he said, "for the sake of your aunt and uncle, if
not for your own, to consider a legal separation?"

For an instant she stared at him hopelessly, and then she buried her face
in her hands.

"No," she cried. "No, I couldn't. You don't know what you ask."

He went to her, and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"I think I do," he said.

There was a m