ng glance, clasping and unclasping
her tense fingers.

"Jack," she said, "you never really cared."

"So it is all my fault!" he cried, snapping his arms together, sure now
that she would stay.

"Yes, it is."

"What!" he cried in a rage--already it was a different rage--"didn't I
give you anything you wanted, everything I had, all my time, all--"

"All but yourself," she said quietly; "you were always cold."

"I!"

"You were! You were!" she said sharply, annoyed at the contradiction.
But quickly remembering herself, she continued with only a regretful
sadness in her voice:

"Always cold, always matter-of-fact. Bob of the head in the morning,
jerk of the head at night. When I was happy over a new dress or a new
hat you never noticed it--until the bill came in. You were always
matter-of-fact, absolutely confident I was yours, body and soul."

"By George, that's too much!" he cried furiously. "That's a fine one.
I'm to blame--of course I'm to blame!"

She drew a step away from him, and said:

"Listen! No, listen quietly, for when I've told you I shall go."

Despite himself, his anger vanished at her quiet command.

"If I listen," he thought, "it's all over."

He still believed he was resisting, only he wanted to hear as he had
never wanted anything else--to learn why she was not going to the other
man.

"Yes, what has happened is only natural," she said, drawing her eyebrows
a little together and seeming to reason more with herself. "It had to
happen before I could really be sure of my love for you. You men know
and choose from the knowledge of many women. A woman, such as I, coming
to you as a girl, must often and often ask herself if she would still
make the same choice. Then another man comes into her life and she makes
of him a test to know once and for all the answer to her question. Jack,
that was it. That was the instinct that drove me to try if I _could_
leave you--the instinct I did not understand then, but that I do now,
when it's too late."

"Yes, she is clever," he thought to himself, listening to her, desiring
her the more as he admired what he did not credit. He felt that he
wanted to be convinced and with a last angry resistance, said:

"Very clever, indeed!"

She looked at him with her clear, gray look, a smile in her eyes,
sadness on her lips.

"You know it is true."

He did not reply. Finally he said bruskly:

"And when did--did the change come to you?"

"In the carriage, when