“I thought she was a young girl.  But, if she’s as old as that—­and bad—­”

“Bad?  Bad?”

He rose and looked down on her in anger.

“She’s good.  You don’t know what you’re talking about.  She isn’t a lady, but she’s as gentle and as modest as you are yourself.  She’s sweet, and kind, and loving.  She’s the most unworldly and unselfish creature I ever met.  All the time I’ve known her she never did a selfish thing.  She was absolutely devoted.  She’d have stripped herself bare of everything she possessed if it would have done me any good.  Why, the very thing you blame the poor little soul for, only proves that she hadn’t a thought for herself.  It would have been better for her if she’d had.  And you talk of ‘reclaiming’ a woman like that!  You want to turn your preposterous committee on to her, to decide whether she’s good enough to be taken and shut up in one of your beastly institutions!  No.  On the whole, I think she’ll be better off if you leave her to me.”

“Say at once that you think I’d better leave you to her, since you think her perfect.”

“She was perfect to me.  She gave me all she had to give.  She couldn’t very well do more.”

“You mean she helped you to sin.  So, of course, you condone her sin.”

“I should be an utter brute if I didn’t stand up for her, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes.”  She admitted it.  “I suppose you feel that you must defend her.  Can you defend yourself, Walter?”

He was silent.

“I’m not going to remind you of your sin against your wife. That you would think nothing of.  What have you to say for your sin against her?”

“My sin against her was not caring for her. You needn’t call me to account for it.”

“I am to believe that you did not care for her?”

“I never cared for her.  I took everything from her and gave her nothing, and I left her like a brute.”

“Why did you go to her if you did not care for her?”

“I went to her because I cared for my wife.  And I left her for the same reason.  And she knew it.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you left me for another woman, because you cared for me?”

“For no earthly reason except that.”

“You deceived me—­you lived in deliberate sin with this woman for three years—­and now you come back to me, because, I suppose, you are tired of her—­and I am to believe that you cared for me!”

“I don’t expect you to believe it.  It’s the fact, all the same.  I wouldn’t have left you if I hadn’t been hopelessly in love with you.  You mayn’t know it, and I don’t suppose you’d understand it if you did, but that was the trouble.  It was the trouble all along, ever since I married you.  I know I’ve been unfaithful to you, but I never loved any one but you.  Consider how we’ve been living, you and I, for the last six years—­can you say that I put another woman in your place?”