Sophy sat watching him, and her heart yearned over him. In spite of her flash of bitterness, she did feel truly mother-like towards him. He seemed to her so young—so very, touchingly young as he leaned there against the old, smoke-toned ivory of the carved mantelpiece, grasping the ledge, his forehead on the back of his hand. She knew how crushingly he was realising that he had "made a mess of things." But then—he had made a mess of things. She was powerless to comfort him there. If she could only show him how much better it would be not to try to rearrange this tangle—but to step free of it, and begin over ... that there was no real adjustment of their two lives—their two utterly different natures, possible.... Could she show him? Well ... she could at least try....

"Morris," she said softly. "Suppose we try to look at it all from another angle? Suppose we try to see it all as though we weren't concerned in it—as if some one had asked our impartial advice? Don't you think that would be a good way to get at it?"

"But what is it you want to 'get at,' Sophy? What is it you want me to do? God knows I'm ready to do anything...."

"Anything?"

"Yes ... anything in reason," he hedged nervously.

"Would you call it reasonable for us both to be free?"

He started—eyed her suspiciously.

"How 'free'? Free in what way?"

"Quite, quite free, Morris."

He paled.

"Divorce...?" he said.

"Yes."

"You want to divorce me?"

"I want us both to have our own lives wholly in our own hands again—that is the only way."

He stared at her, whiter and whiter.

"Didn't you ever ... love me ... at all?" he managed, at last.

"Ah!—you know whether I loved you...."

"You ... you mean ... I ... I've killed it?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, you are cruel ... you are cruel!..." he burst out. He stared at her, his face working. "You're the crudest woman God ever made!" he said huskily.

Sophy was white too. She, too, stammered a little.

"I ... I think ... that truth ... is nearly always cruel," she said. "But it's only truth that will make us free——"

His hands were gripping the sides of the chair into which he had sunk again, so that his arms trembled.

"Damn the truth, then...!" he said slowly and thickly.

"You'd want to keep a wife who doesn't love you as a wife should?"

"Yes, I want to keep you.... I want to keep you if you hate me!... Yes. Yes."

"That is cruelty...."

"Is it? Then I'm cruel, too."

Sophy sat with her eyes on his suffused, lowering face. Her hand went to and fro over the collie's head. She sat so long thus, without speaking, that he said gruffly:

"Well? What now? Why do you stare so?"

"I'm trying to imagine how it would be to feel like that. I'm trying to get your point of view."

"How ... my point of view?"

"The wanting to hold a woman against her will. But I can't understand it. I never understood how a man or woman could want to hold another when love had gone ... the love that is the only reason for marriage."

"You rub it in, don't you?"

She said sadly:

"Why do you speak so roughly and bitterly to me—as if it were my love only that had failed? Do you think I didn't know when first your love began to wane?"

He tried to brave it out.

"And why did it 'wane,' as you call it? Can a man be snubbed day in, day out, and yet keep at concert pitch forever?"

"You mean that I would not respond to you when you had been drinking?"

"Well—put it that way."

Sophy gave a tired sigh.

"Why must we go over it and over it?" she asked. "It is not me that you want, Morris—it is your own way. You never want what is yours—only what is out of reach. You have turned on Belinda now, only because she came to you too easily. If I came back to you—you would not want me any longer."

He sneered.

"It's easy to say what I would or wouldn't do. It's easy to arraign me. But what of yourself? I thought you were so great on unselfishness! Where's the unselfishness in all this, I'd like to know?"

"I'm not trying to be unselfish, Morris. I've been unselfish so long that I've nearly lost my best self. I find it's better to keep one's best self than to be selfless."

He looked startled at this heresy against the great Credo of Man's-Ideal-Woman.

"Good Lord!... You have changed!" he said, in blank dismay. "It doesn't seem to be you talking...."

"It's a 'me' that you don't know, perhaps...."

"I certainly don't know this side of you."

"It isn't a side of me—it's the core of me."

They were both silent again. Loring was the first to take it up.

"Look here ... have you spoken to Judge Macon and your sister about all this?"

"Yes."

He reddened angrily.

"A pleasant position for me, isn't it?"

"It's odious for both of us, Morris," she said, with feeling.

"Did you tell them about ... about...?"

He couldn't bring it out.

"I told them about you and Belinda. I didn't tell them ... that other thing. I couldn't tell any one that...."

"Oh ... thanks!" he sneered.

Sophy flashed out:

"It wasn't for your sake I didn't tell them—it was for my own!"

He looked staggered. He was so used to her forbearance and gentleness that he could almost have believed in the old tales of "possession." It was as though Sophy's body had become "possessed" by a strange, heretic spirit that denied all her former religion of abnegation in one strange speech after the other. He was humiliatingly at a loss in dealing with this new, essential Sophy. He felt something as the Miltonian Adam might have felt if his docile Eve had announced her intention of leaving him and Eden in the companionship of the serpent. Indeed, these new ideas of hers hissed like a whole nestful of serpents. And all the time, just because—in spite of his angry denials—she seemed slipping farther and farther from him—he desired her as he had never desired her. Not beautifully, as of old—but desperately, bitterly, blindly!

He sprang up suddenly, and took a few turns about the room. He went and stood at the window, gazing out into the twilight. The fire reflected in the window-panes seemed flickering among the dark leaves of the magnolia.

Joycie came in with the tea things. He sat sullenly nursing one leg upon the other while Sophy made tea. He wouldn't have any.

They could hear Charlotte's voice here and there about the house. The Judge rode past the window on Silvernose. But no one interrupted them. Only Joycie came in after a little, to clear away the tea things. She went out with the tray, Dhu following her, and they were alone, once more. Sophy rose as Joycie went out, and herself lighted the lamp on her writing-table.

"Why didn't you ask me to do that?" he said irritably.

"I didn't think," she answered.

Now in the lamplight he could see how very white and tired she looked. His heart softened. He went over impulsively and stood close to her.

"Sophy," he said, "what is it you really want?"

Her answer gushed quick and hot like heart's blood:

"My freedom, Morris!... My freedom ... my freedom!" It was like the breaking of the waters. It poured in a cataract of passionate, breathless words. "Oh, be kind ... be generous, let me go, without haggling ... without bitterness.... We owe it to the past to part as friends. We should be big in this big thing ... get above littleness of every sort. Just because we have made a heart-rending mistake ... why should we be like enemies?... Give me this one memory of you ... clear, great. Something I can remember all beautiful. You owe it to our love, Morris. You owe it to that wonderful dream we dreamt together...."

"Stop ... stop!..." he gasped. "It's like death.... It's worse than death...."

"Oh, my dear!..." she said. "I know.... It's horrible! To me, too, it's horrible.... But let me go ... ah, let me go, and I'll love you with a new love!... It will last ... it will bless you all your life.... Let me go, dear, let me go!..."

He stood shaking. His breath came quick and hard. He was dreadfully near to tears.

"I can't," he got out at last.

"Yes. Yes. You can ... you will...."

"No," he stuttered, "no ... no...."

She turned away, sank down again, her face in her hands. For a second or two he stood watching her. Then he went and flung himself on his knees before her as he had done that wild, windy night, three years ago. He grasped either side of her chair as he had done then, prisoning yet not touching her with his arms.

"Beautiful...." he whispered. "Beautiful...."

She cowered back as though he had struck her, her face still hidden.

"Don't you remember...." the husky voice went on. "That night ... the wind ... the wild moon!... Oh, Selene! Selene!... I've blasphemed ... but I still worship.... I still worship...."

She began to sob, desperately, helplessly, like a child.

"Forgive me ... take me back, Selene.... Only try me once more.... This one time.... You'll see.... You'll see you can trust me ... give me your love again ... this once ... this once...."

She struggled to speak. The big sobs choked her. At last, between them, the words came. "It's ... all ... emptiness," she said, "here...." She put one hand to her breast. "There's nothing...." The sobs broke in again. ".... To give...." she ended.

He knelt staring at the slight hand that still hid her face from him. Suddenly he noticed, as Amaldi had done, that her wedding ring was not on it. He dropped his head upon her knees. That broke his manhood to see that she had put aside even the symbol of their union. He felt her hand upon his hair. He wept and wept, wishing, as he had wished about Belinda—that he had never been born.

And over Sophy came the old feeling of nightmare—the sensation of having lived twice over her fatal marriage with Chesney. Just so Cecil had once clung weeping to her knees. But then she still had some hope—some love to give. Now she was beggared of all but pity. And even this pity was not strong enough to make her return once more to the unspeakable sacrifice of loveless marriage.

A sudden rattling at the door sent him to his feet, apprehensive, shamefaced. Then an impatient whine told him that it was only the collie asking to be let in again. He crossed over and opened the door with a vexed jerk. The dog always irritated him. Now he would have liked to kick it. The collie rushed over to Sophy, and pressed against her anxiously, as if he knew something were wrong with her. He whined again, nuzzling his head against her breast. Loring pulled out his watch.

"I suppose I'd better get ready for dinner," he said.

"Yes," she said, rising.

He held open the door for her, and she went out, her swollen eyelids lowered. His heart gave a great gulp as she passed him—half love, half anger. His vanity ached with resentment that she should hold out against him like this. What was left of love ached also with the dread of losing her. He was beginning to take it in that he really might lose her.

As he changed for dinner, he bruised his brain trying to recall exactly the words that he had used to her in that mad outbreak of jealousy. He could not remember half. But what he did remember made him scorch with shame. No wonder she had revolted!... No wonder!... No wonder!... He had this spasmodic burst of inward honesty. But then again she was too hard ... too self-righteous. Yes, damn it all ... that was what she was—"self-righteous"!

A reaction of mood began to set in. The dinner was constrained and painful to a degree. Every one was glad to go to bed early and break up the oppressive evening.

That night Belinda haunted Loring's dreams. He would wake up aflame—resentful ... then plunge back into the maze of lurid dreams again. Towards morning he had a long, hateful illusion of being married to both Sophy and Belinda. He was going up an endless church-aisle all sickly with flowers—and on either arm was a bride in veil and orange-blossoms. And one of these brides was Sophy, and one Belinda.

The dream was ridiculous and horrible as well as hateful. The clergyman was a huge negro, all in red. He wore an Oxford cap and married them out of a little box covered with red velvet, instead of out of a prayer-book. This box was a music-box. The clergyman explained. He said: "When I grind the first tune, you will be married to this woman." He pointed at Sophy. "When I grind the second tune, you will be married to this woman." He indicated Belinda. Then he ground away at the little red velvet box. The tunes were rag-time. The big negro patted with his foot as he ground them out.... Then he gave Sophy a ring, and Belinda a pointed knife. He said:

"This is the black knife of Lur; it cuts through all things."

And at these words, Loring broke out in the horrible cold sweat of fear that only a dream can give.

Then everything changed. He lay in the midst of a frightful, black, catafalque-like bed. On one side lay Sophy, on one side Belinda. He could see Belinda; but try as he might he could not see Sophy, though he knew that she was lying at his other side. Belinda was leaning across him and pressing down his face with her hand. She was laughing. He could see the tip of her tongue between her white teeth as in mischief. She looked very beautiful, but wicked. Her white breast showed through little petals of red flowers. He struggled to lift his head.

"Where is the black knife of Lur?" he cried; and as he cried it, again he broke into a sweat of fear. Belinda laughed more, and said:

"It is there. Look!"

She took away her hand from his face, and he rose on his elbow, and turned to see Sophy lying, white and still, with the handle of the knife protruding from her breast. Belinda was saying:

"Didn't I do it well? Not a drop of blood!"

He gave a choked scream, and woke sweating and trembling like a panic-stricken horse.