t of it."

"They'll beat you."

"We'll see that."

"But they will. And then?"

"Why should one meet disaster half way?"

"Stephen!" she said; "what will happen to you when I am not here to make
you look at things? Because I shan't be here. Not within reach of
you.... There are times when I feel like a mother to you. Never more
than now...."

And then with rapid touches she began to picture the disaster before
me. She pictured the Court and our ineffectual denials, she made me
realize the storm of hostility that was bound to burst over us. "And
think of me," she said. "Stripped I shall be and outcast."

"Not while I live!"

"But what can you do for me? You will have Rachel. How can you stand by
me? You can't be cruel to Rachel. You know you can't be cruel to Rachel.
Look me in the face, Stephen; tell me. Yes.... Then how can you stand by
me?"

"Somehow!" I cried foolishly and stopped.

"They'll use me to break your back with costs and damages. There'll be
those children of yours to think of...."

"My God!" I cried aloud. "Why do you torment me? Haven't I thought
enough of those things?... Haven't I seen the ruin and the shame, the
hopeless trap, men's trust in me gone, my work scattered and ended
again, my children growing up to hear this and that exaggeration of our
story. And you----. All the bravery of your life scattered and wasted.
The thing will pursue us all, cling to us. It will be all the rest of
our lives for us...."

I covered my face with my hands.

When I looked up, her face was white and still, and full of a strange
tenderness. "I wouldn't have you, Stephen--I wouldn't have you be cruel
to Rachel.... I just wanted to know--something.... But we're wandering.
We're talking nonsense. Because as I said, there need be no divorce.
There will be no divorce at all. That's what I came to tell you. I shall
have to pay--in a way, Stephen.... Not impossibly. Don't think it is
anything impossible...."

Then she bit her lips and sat still....

"My dear," I whispered, "if we had taken one another at the
beginning...."

But she went on with her own thoughts.

"You love those little children of yours," she said. "And that trusting
girl-wife.... Of course you love them. They're yours. Oh! they're so
deeply--yours.... Yours...."

"Oh my dear! don't torture me! I do love them. But I love you too."

"No," she said, "not as you do them."

I made a movement of protest.

"No," she said, whitely radian