?"

"Jurgis!" she exclaimed, starting up in fright. "Oh, Jurgis, how can
you?"

"You have lied to me, I say!" he cried. "You told me you had been to
Jadvyga's house that other night, and you hadn't. You had been where
you were last night--somewheres downtown, for I saw you get off the car.
Where were you?"

It was as if he had struck a knife into her. She seemed to go all to
pieces. For half a second she stood, reeling and swaying, staring at
him with horror in her eyes; then, with a cry of anguish, she tottered
forward, stretching out her arms to him. But he stepped aside,
deliberately, and let her fall. She caught herself at the side of the
bed, and then sank down, burying her face in her hands and bursting into
frantic weeping.

There came one of those hysterical crises that had so often dismayed
him. Ona sobbed and wept, her fear and anguish building themselves up
into long climaxes. Furious gusts of emotion would come sweeping over
her, shaking her as the tempest shakes the trees upon the hills; all her
frame would quiver and throb with them--it was as if some dreadful thing
rose up within her and took possession of her, torturing her, tearing
her. This thing had been wont to set Jurgis quite beside himself; but
now he stood with his lips set tightly and his hands clenched--she might
weep till she killed herself, but she should not move him this time--not
an inch, not an inch. Because the sounds she made set his blood to
running cold and his lips to quivering in spite of himself, he was glad
of the diversion when Teta Elzbieta, pale with fright, opened the door
and rushed in; yet he turned upon her with an oath. "Go out!" he cried,
"go out!" And then, as she stood hesitating, about to speak, he seized
her by the arm, and half flung her from the room, slamming the door
and barring it with a table. Then he turned again and faced Ona,
crying--"Now, answer me!"

Yet she did not hear him--she was still in the grip of the fiend. Jurgis
could see her outstretched hands, shaking and twitching, roaming
here and there over the bed at will, like living things; he could see
convulsive shudderings start in her body and run through her limbs. She
was sobbing and choking--it was as if there were too many sounds for one
throat, they came chasing each other, like waves upon the sea. Then her
voice would begin to rise into screams, louder and louder until it broke
in wild, horrible peals of laughter. Jurgis bore it until he co