."

'"But I was fond of you. I was always fond of you, Olive."

'But I answered him sternly:

'"Then prove your affection, Mat, by setting me free. Let me go my way
and you go yours, for as truly as I stand here I will never live with
you again."

'"But what will you do?" he asked; "oh, Olive, do not be so cruelly
hard! There is Tom; he will take you and the children, and care for you
all."

'But at the mention of his brother I lost all control over myself. Oh, I
know I said some hard things then--I am not defending myself--and he
begged me at last very piteously not to excite myself, and he would
never mention Tom again; only he must know what I meant to do with
myself and the children while he was working out his sentence.

'"Then I will tell you," I replied; "for at least you have a right to
know that, although from this day I will never acknowledge you as my
husband. I will not go near your beggarly relations; but I have a little
money of my own, as you know, though you have never been able to touch
it. I will manage to keep the children on that."

'Well, we talked--at least I talked--and at last I got him to promise
that he would never molest me or the children again. Mat was always
weak, and I managed to frighten him. I threatened to make away with
myself and the children sooner than have this shame brought home to
them, not that I meant it; but I was in one of my passionate moods, when
anything seemed possible.

'I told him what I meant to do, for I had planned it all in my head
already. I would sell out all my money and change my investments, so
that all clue should be lost; and I would take another name, and after a
time the children should be told their father was dead. I would give
myself out to be a widow, and in this way no disgrace would ever touch
them. Would you believe it? Mat was so broken and penitent that he began
to think that, after all, this would be best--that it would be kinder to
me and the children to cut himself adrift from us.

'I saw him again, and he gave me his promise. "You are a clever woman,
Olive," he said; "you will do better for the youngsters than ever I
could have done. I have brought disgrace on everyone belonging to me. If
you would only have trusted to Tom!--but you will go your own gait. I
dare not cross you; I never have dared, lest evil should come of it; but
I think no woman ever had a colder heart."

'"You have killed it, Mat," was my answer; and then I said go