ed her disappointed tears and trudged down the steps after
the white-clad grandfather who was untying his horse.

When the child and the grandfather were gone the wife said in a dead,
emotionless voice, looking at the parcel on the floor, "Well, Tom?"

"Well, Laura," he repeated, "that's about the size of it--there it
is--and you know all about it. I shall not lie--this time. It's not
worth while--now."

The woman sat in a porch chair. The man hesitated, and she said: "Sit
down, Tom. I don't know what to do or what to say," she began. "If there
were just you and me to consider, I suppose I'd say we'd have to quit.
But there's Lila. She is here and she does love you--and she has her
right--the greatest right in the world to--well, to us--to a home, and a
home means a father and a mother." The man rose. He put his hands in his
coat pockets and stood by the porch column, making no reply.

The wife continued, "I can't even speak of what you have done to me,
Tom. But it will hurt when I'm an old woman--I want to hide my face from
every one--even from God--when I think of what you have used me for."

He dropped into the chair beside her, looking at the floor. Her voice
had stirred some chord in his thousand-stringed heart. He reached out a
hand to her.

"No, Tom," said the wife, "I don't want your pity."

"No, Laura," the husband returned quickly, "no, you don't need my pity;
it's not pity that I am trying to give you. I only wished you to listen
to what I have to say." The wife looked at her husband for a second in
fear as she apprehended what he was about to utter. He turned his eyes
from her and went on: "It was a mistake, a very nightmare of a
mistake--my mistake--all my mistake--but still just an awful mistake.
We couldn't make life go. All this was foredoomed, Laura, and
now--now--" his eyes were upon the parcel on the floor, "here I am sure
I have found the thing my life needs. And it is my life--my life." He
saw his wife go pale, then flush; but he went on. "After all, it is
one's own life that commands him, and nothing else in the world. And now
I must follow my destiny."

"But, Tom," asked the wife, "you aren't going to this woman? You aren't
going to leave us? You surely won't break up this home--not this home,
Tom?"

The man hesitated before answering, then spoke directly: "I must follow
my destiny--work it out as I see it. You have no right, no one has any
right--even I have no right to compromise with