She had not raised her voice, which seemed as without feeling as it was without emphasis.  She carefully examined her handkerchief corner by corner, and he noticed for the first time how thin her hands had become.

“Naturally,” she went on in that colorless voice, “my first impulse was to be done with life.  But I could not bring myself to that, much as I desired it.  It would have left you such a wretched memory of me.  You could never have pardoned me the scandal—­and I felt that I had at least the right to leave you a decent recollection of me.”

Shattuck’s head fell forward on his arms.—­The idea of denial or protest did not occur to him.

The steady voice went monotonously on.  “I could not bear to humble you in the eyes of others even by forcing you to face a scandal.  I could not bear to humble you in your own eyes by letting you suspect that I knew the truth.  I could not bring myself to disturb the outward respectability of your life by interrupting its outward calm.  To be absolutely honest—­though I had lost you, I could not bring myself to give you up,—­as I felt I must, if I let any one discover—­most of all you—­what I knew.  So, like a coward, I lived on, becoming gradually accustomed to the idea that my day was past, but knowing that the moment I was forced to speak, I would be forced to move on out of your life.  Singularly enough, as I grew calm, I grew to respect this other woman.  I could not blame her for loving you.  I ended by admiring her.  I had known her so well—­she was such a proud woman!  I looked back at my marriage and saw the affair as it really was.  I had not sold myself to you exactly—­I had loved you too much to bargain in that way; nevertheless, the marriage had been a bargain.  In exchange for your promise to protect and provide for me,—­to feed me, clothe me, share your fortune with me, and give me your name, I had given you myself,—­openly sanctioned by the law, of course—­I was too great a coward to have done it otherwise, in spite of the fact that the law gives that same permission to almost any one who asks for it.”

“Naomi,” he groaned from his covered mouth, “what ghastly philosophy.”

“Isn’t that the marriage law?  How much better am I after all than the poor girl in the street, who is forced to it by misery?  To be sure, I believe there is some farcical phrase in the bargain about promising to love none other,—­a bare-faced attempt to outwit Nature,—­at which Nature laughs.  Yet this other woman, proud, high-minded, unselfish, hitherto above reproach, had given herself for love alone—­with everything to lose and nothing to gain.  I have come to doubt myself.  I have had my day.  For years it was an enviable one.  No woman can hope for more.  What right have I to stand in the way of another woman’s happiness?  A happiness no one can value better than I, who so long wore it in security.  I bore my children in peace, with the divine consolation of your devotion about me.  What right have I to deny another woman the same joy?”