“Frank!”

“Damn you, don’t talk.”

She did not move.  Her eyes were on the ground.  Pride and Fear were having their last struggle, and Fear conquered.  Without looking at her husband she could feel that his patience was nearing an end.  Very slowly she stooped down and picked up the teapot and the broken cups and saucers and laid them on the table.  Blindly she tottered over to the rocking-chair and burst into a passion of tears.

“And I thought I knew what it was to be unhappy!”

He watched her with a slight, but not unkindly, smile on his face.

“Come on, my girl,” he said, without any trace of anger, “don’t shirk the rest of it.”

Through her laced fingers, she looked at the mess of spilled tea on the floor.  Keeping her tear-marred face turned away from him, she slowly got up, and slowly found the broom and swept it all into a little heap on the newspaper that lay where he had left it.

Suddenly she threw back her head.  Her eyes shone with a new resolution.  He watched her, wondering.  With a quick, firm step, she carried the rolled-up paper to the stove and shoved it far into the glowing embers.  Gathering up the crockery, after a glance around the room in search of some receptacle which her eye did not find, she carried it over to the wood-pile, laying it upon the logs.  The broom was restored to its corner.  She took up her hat and coat and began to put them on.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve done what you made me do, now I’m going.”

“Where, if I might ask?”

“What do I care, as long as I get away.”

“You ain’t under the impression that there’s a first-class hotel round the corner, are you?  There ain’t.”

“I can go to the Sharps.”

“I guess they’re in bed and asleep by now.”

“I’ll wake them.”

“You’d never find your way.  It’s pitch dark.  Look.”

He threw open the door.  It was true.  The sky had clouded over.  The feeling of the air had changed.  It smelt of storm.

“I’ll sleep out of doors, then.”

“On the prairie?  Why, you’d freeze to death before morning.”

“What does it matter to you whether I live or die?”

“It matters a great deal.  Once more, let me remind you that women are scarce in Manitoba.”

“Are you going to keep me from going?”

“Sure.”

He closed the door and placed his back against it.

“You can’t keep me here against my will.  If I don’t go to-night, I can go to-morrow.”

“To-morrow’s a long, long way off.”

Her hand flew to her throat.

“Frank!  What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what silly fancies you’ve had in your head; but when I married you I intended that you should be a proper wife to me.”

“But—­but—­but you understood.”

It was all she could do to force the words from her dry throat.  With a desperate effort she pulled herself together and tried to talk calmly and reasonably.