u
didn't bring it, you can understand why I should be in doubt as to--as
to whether or not--it really did come."

Since he recognized the futility of making an immediate response, they
stood confronting each other in silence.

She took another step nearer him. "But what I'm not in any doubt about
at all is the scorn I feel for myself for ever having cherished the
delusion. If I'd been a woman with--with more claim, let us say, to
being loved--"

"Lois, for God's sake, don't say that!"

"But I must say it, Thor. It's at the bottom of all I mean. I was weak
and foolish enough to think that in spite of the things I lacked a man
had given me his heart--when he hadn't."

"Lois, I can't stand this. Please don't go on."

"But I have to stand it, Thor. I have to stand it day and night, without
ever getting away from the thought of it. I have to go back and puzzle
and wonder and speculate as to why you did what you've done to me. I see
things this way, Thor: There was a time when you thought you might come
to care for me. You really thought it. And then--something happened--and
you were not so sure. Later, you felt that you couldn't--that you never
would. But the something that happened happened the wrong way for
you--and papa broke down as he did--and I was in danger of being
poor--and you were kind and generous--and--you weren't very happy as
things were--you told me so, didn't you? And--and--in short--you thought
you might as well. You knew I expected it--or had expected it once--and
so--so you did it. Tell me, Thor dear; am I so very far wrong? Wasn't it
like that?"

He raised his head defiantly. "And if I admitted that it was like that,
what then?"

"Oh, nothing. I should merely ask you the same thing--to let me go
away."

"Away for how long?"

She reflected. "Till I could establish a new basis on which to come
back."

"I don't know what you mean by a new basis."

"I dare say I don't mean anything very different from the compromise
most people have to make--a little while after marriage; only that in my
case the necessity comes more as--a shock. You see, Thor, you're not the
man--not the man I thought you were. I must have a little while to get
used to that."

He stirred uneasily. "You find I'm--I'm not so good a man."

"Oh, I don't say that. I don't say that at all. You're just as good.
Only you're not--" She went up to him, laying her hands on his
shoulders--"Oh, you don't understand. I loved the other