“But after nearly a year of that, I had to laugh at myself for a fool.  For Joe began wanting money again, and I knew he was thinking of marrying you.  I fought, of course, and for a time I had some hope of beating you.  I remembered you as you had been at the time of your sister’s funeral.  You had seemed so young and weak to me.  But later, when you were his wife and began taking half his time, keeping late hours, draining him—­for you women can drain a man, you know—­then I knew that you were strong, your sister’s sister.  I gave in.  Or I should say I took the only chance that was left.  I threw over the things we had dreamed of and got him to work for money hard—­harder than he’d ever done.  I drove him!  Why?  Because I got him back that way.  By making him work for money for you I began to get him away from you.  In time I even got him to stay in the office late at night.  I got him to keep away from you nights.  And there was more than that in my scheme.  For now we’re making money enough to satisfy even you, I think.  I’m not sure—­I’m never sure—­your sister taught me never to be.  Perhaps you can’t be satisfied.  But if you can, I see a chance.  Tell me how much you really need.  We’ll get it.  And then for the love of God leave us alone before it’s too late—­before what’s in the man is dead!”

Nourse finished and rose, looking down at her.  She sat rigid, keeping herself in hand.  Again and again she had been on the point of bursting out, for the sheer brutality of so much he had told her had made it very hard to sit still.  But then as he had spoken of Amy, Ethel had kept silent, watching his face intensely.  How much Amy must have done to have aroused such bitterness!  A sense of reality in his talk, a clear and sudden consciousness of having the real Amy held up here before her eyes, had gripped Ethel like a vise.  Till now she had no clear idea of how much Joe had sacrificed.  But all that finer side of him, that early life, those dreams, those friends, had all been known to Amy.  And Amy had been willing to lose them all, to crush them out, for money, only money, and money for such an empty life!  Ethel shivered a little.  Her sister’s picture was complete.

“No,” she said, looking up at Nourse, “I’m not going to leave you alone.  What I’ve got to do now is to try my best to make you feel what I really want, and what a mistake you’ve been making.  Please listen, while I try to be clear.”  Her expression was strained as she looked at him.  She smiled a little.  “I am not like my sister.  I’d rather not say much about her now.  She—­had her good points, too—­she’s dead.  And all you need to know is this.  You were wrong about me in those first months—­I was trying to get away from Joe.  I had my own dreams and I wished to be free.  I even tried to earn my living.  I worked for a while.  But the man I worked for—­frightened me—­and that threw me back on Joe.  He was poor then, so I nursed his child and ran his home on very little.