“You will never know from me.  What right have you to ask her to sink with you?  That’s what it means.  There are people who think that a wife’s obligation has no bounds, that she must sink, if her husband choose to demand it.  Let those believe it who will.  What motive should render such a sacrifice possible to her?  You know she cannot love you.  Pity?  How can she pity you in such a sense as to degrade herself for your sake?  Neither you nor she nor I hold the creed that justifies such martyrdom.  Am I to teach you such things?  Shame!  Have the courage of your convictions.  You have released her, and you must be content to leave her free.  The desire to fetter her again is ignoble, dastardly!”

He would neither be shamed nor convinced.  With desperate beseechings, with every argument of passion, no matter how it debased him, he strove frantically to subdue her to his purpose.  But Miriam was immovable.  At length she could not even urge him with reasonings; his prostrate frenzy revolted her, and she drew away in repugnance.  Reuben’s supplication turned on the instant into brutal rage.

“Curse your obstinacy!” he shouted, in a voice that had strained itself to hoarseness.

The door opened, and Mallard, who had come to see whether Elgar was still here, heard his exclamation.

“Out of the house!” he commanded sternly.  “March!  And never let me see you here again.”

Reuben rushed past him, and the house-door closed violently.

Then Miriam’s overstrung nerves gave way, and for the first time Mallard saw her shed tears.  She described to him the scene that had passed.

“What ought I to do?  She must be warned.  It is horrible to think that he may find her, and persuade her.”

They agreed that she should go to Cecily early next morning.  In the meantime she wrote to Eleanor.

But the morning brought a letter from Reuben, of a tenor which seemed to make it needless to mention this incident to Cecily.

“I had not long left you,” he wrote, “when I recovered my reason, and recognized your wisdom in opposing me.  For a week I have been drinking myself into a brutal oblivion—­or trying to do so; I came to you in a nerveless and half imbecile state.  You were hard with me, but it was just what I needed.  You have made me understand—­ for to-day, at all events—­the completeness of my damnation.  Thank you for discharging that sisterly office.  I observe, by-the-bye, that Mallard’s influence is strengthening your character.  Formerly you were often rigorous, but it was spasmodic.  You can now persevere in pitilessness, an essential in one who would support what we call justice.  Don’t think I am writing ironically.  Whenever I am free from passion, as now—­and that is seldom enough—­I can see myself precisely as you and all those on your side of the gulf see me.  The finer qualities I once had survive in my memory, bat I know it is hopeless to try and recover them.  I find it interesting to write a book about it, but it would be of the kind that study the processes of my degradation.  I should like n_ one would publish.