"Oh, yes, I should, Gabriella. Marriage is sacred to me!" exclaimed
Jane, whose perfect wifeliness atoned, even in the opinion of Jimmy, for
any discrepancies in logic. "Nothing on earth could have induced me to
leave him until--until this happened."

The conviction that she had never at any moment since her marriage
"failed in her duty to Charley" lent a touching sanctity to her
expression, while the bitter lines around her mouth faded in the wan
glow that flooded her face. Whatever her affliction, however intense her
humiliation, Jane was supported always by the most comforting of
beliefs--the belief that she had been absolutely right and Charley
absolutely wrong through the ten disillusioning years of their married
life. Never for an instant--never even in a nightmare--had she been
visited by the disquieting suspicion that she was not entirely
blameless.

"Well, you've left him now anyway," said Gabriella, with the disarming
candour which delighted Jimmy and perplexed Uncle Meriweather, "so
somebody has got to help you take care of the children."

"She shall never come to want as long as Pussy and I have a cent left,"
declared Cousin Jimmy, and his voice expressed what Mrs. Carr described
afterward as "proper feeling."

"And we'd really rather that you'd earn less and keep in your own
station of life," said Pussy decisively.

"If you mean that you'd rather I'd work buttonholes or crochet mats than
go into a store and earn a salary, then I can't do it," answered
Gabriella, as resolute, though not so right-minded, as poor Jane. "I'd