“God knows I want to, Ethel!” His tone was low, but so sharp and tense that she drew suddenly closer.  He turned from her and sank into a chair, with his hands for a moment pressed to his eyes.  “I’m sick of this—­I’m not myself.  Maybe I acted like a fool. . . .  Some of that stuff from Fanny Carr doesn’t hold together—­it’s too thin.”  He looked up at her.  “But some of it does.  And what you’ll have to clear up now is why you never let me know.”

“The reason I didn’t,” she answered quickly, “goes way back into the past.  And it’s not only about you and me—­it’s about—­about somebody else.”  She stopped and her throat contracted.  She set her teeth.  “We must talk about Amy for a while.”

There!  At last she had brought it out!  And she had seen her husband flinch.  For a moment both were silent.

“Why!” he asked.  She swallowed hard.

“Because we never have before.  We’ve—­gone two years without speaking her name.  I had no idea how bad that might be.”  She broke off, for her voice was trembling so.  “I don’t know how much you’ve learned in that time—­about Amy, I mean—­but I’ve learned a lot, and—­I think I’d better tell you.  I must, you see, or you won’t understand what I’ve been doing lately.  I couldn’t have explained before, without speaking of her—­and I didn’t do that.  But I should have, Joe, and I will now—­if only you’ll be patient and let me do the talking.”

“Well!”

“Some of it goes so very far back.”  She leaned forward with a queer little smile:  “Amy was good to me when I came—­and I had always worshipped her—­I thought she was nearly everything.  She made me feel how she—­loved you, Joe—­she had ambition, urged you on.  But—­oh, I’ve got to try to be clear.  What kind of ambition was it, Joe!  What did you have before you met her?  How did you used to look at your work!  You were coming up to do big things—­but you married her and your work all changed.  You threw over ideals to make money for her.  And when your partner tried to hold you, Amy tried to break up the firm.  Didn’t she?  Don’t you remember?” She waited, but he did not speak.  “How hard it is for him,” she thought, “to admit a thing against her.  This won’t be easy.”  But she felt a little thrill of pride in him.

“So Bill has been talking, has he,” he said.

“Yes, I made him.”  She went on.  “Amy set herself against him—­and against all your other old friends.  Not at first—­I want to be fair to her, Joe—­don’t think I’m blaming just her for all this.  I’m sure that at first she was different—­she wanted your friends to take her in.  Remember those dinners you took her to, and that week-end party up in Vermont!”

Joe looked at her sharply: 

“Who told you that?”

“Sally Crothers,” said Ethel.  “She was there.”

“Sally Crothers?  You know her!” he demanded.  She smiled at the startled look on his face.