o without her--that we want her at home."
He turned to the younger. "Dis a maman que tu vas pleurer si elle te
quitte ce soir--qu'il faut qu'elle vienne t'ecouler dire la priere."

But, when he raised himself, Edith was already walking swiftly up the
Avenue. He would have followed her, only that the children seemed to
restrain him, clinging to his knees. All he could do was to watch
her--watch her while the thronging crowds and the shimmering sun-shot
dust of the golden afternoon blotted her from his sight--and the great
city-world out of which he had received her took her back.

II

RESENTMENT

It was a strange sensation to be free. It was still more strange that it
was not a sensation. It was a kind of numbness. She could only feel that
she didn't feel. In spite of her repeated silent assertions, "I'm free!
I'm free!" any consciousness of change eluded her.

It was true that there had been a moment like a descent into hell, from
which she thought she must come up another woman. Aunt Emily and the
lawyer had whirled her somewhere in a motor. Veiled as heavily as was
consistent with articulation, she had told a tale that seemed
abominable, though it was no more than a narrative of the facts. It
added to her sense of degradation to learn that one of the cheaper
dailies had published a snapshot of her taken as she was re-entering the
motor to come away. But even the horror of that moment passed, as
something too unreal to be other than a dream, and, except that she and
the children were staying with Aunt Emily instead of in their own home,
all was as before. All was as before to a disappointing degree--to a
degree that maddened her.

It maddened her because it brought no appeasement to that which for more
than a year had been her dominating motive--to do something to Chip that
would bring home to him a realizing sense of what he had done to her. It
was not that she wanted revenge. She was positive as to that. She wanted
only to make him understand. Hitherto he hadn't understood. She had seen
that in all his letters, right up to the moment when, driven to despair
by what seemed to her his moral obtuseness, she had implored him not to
write again. It was to help him to understand that which he was either
unable or unwilling to understand that she had so resolutely refused to
see him--partly that, and partly Aunt Emily. She would have died if it
hadn't been for Aunt Emily--died or given in; and the mere thought