earnest, I should certainly think that you were
indulging in jests." Somehow her low laugh, this time, hardly rang
true.

The cynical reply caused her husband's figure to straighten out
stiffly--they both were now at dangerous cross purposes.

Meeting his gaze, she went on crisply: "And was it for the sake of
expatiating on the general failure of marriage that you commanded me
to meet you here before I could go out?" Without waiting for a reply,
she drew out her gold watch, and after glancing at it, said
carelessly, "I am afraid I shall not be able to listen to all the
_pros_ and _cons_ of this vast question to-night, as I have, as you
are aware, to be at the opera in a half-hour or so."

His face now lit up angrily, as he rejoined hotly, "Yes, it was to
discuss this vast question that I wanted to see you alone; but not to
discuss it in the abstract, as you evidently think, but as it concerns
you and me, and to try to remedy, as far as possible, the mistake you
evidently must have made when you thought you loved and married me."

As he ceased and turned away toward the piano, she almost sank on the
chair at her side. "Where are we drifting?" she whispered; "surely it
has not come to this between Harold and me!" His back was turned to
her, and he was fingering the music restlessly, trying to get command
of himself for what he had to say.

Turning, he leaned against the piano, and fixing his eyes on the
comely head with its rich brown covering, he said firmly, but not
without some emotion, "We have drifted, and drifted so, Grace, that
there is nothing else left--we must part."

Her breath came quickly, but there was no other sign that she was
agitated.

He paused, in his heart hoping she would give some sign that the words
meant something to her, and that he might, even yet, catch some
evidence that her love for him was not utterly dead. During the pause
which ensued, she turned her face away from him, and so he did not see
the look almost of terror which it now wore.

Construing her silence into simple acquiescence, and thus angered the
more, he went on in a hard voice: "During the past two years the
change in you, Grace, has been incomprehensible to me. For my wishes
you have not shown the slightest regard, while your home, as you know,
has held no attractions for you--possibly because I am in it. You have
persisted in going out alone to the opera, to parties and social
attractions of a like nature, until you