"Because I loved you--because you had crept into my heart with your
pretty ways, your charm, and the fascination of you. I hadn't any
thought but you; you seemed all of my life, and I was going to do such
great things for you. By God, I was going to amount to something for
your sake! I was going to make you a proud and happy woman, but you
wouldn't have it! You never got past the trivial things; the annoyances,
the need of money, the little self-denials, the little inconveniences;
you stopped there and dragged me back when I wanted to go on; you
wouldn't have it, you couldn't or wouldn't understand my hopes--my
ambitions!"

"Marsh, I was only a girl!" she said.

He put out his hand toward the bottle.

"Don't, Marsh!" she entreated.

He turned away and fell to pacing the floor again.

"What happiness do we get out of life, what good? We go on from day to
day living a life that is perfectly intolerable to us both; what's the
use of it--I wonder we stand it!"

"I have sometimes wondered that, too," Evelyn half whispered.

"You had it in your power to make our life different, but you wouldn't
take the trouble; and see where we have drifted; you don't trust me and
I don't trust you--" She started. "What sort of a basis is that for a
man and wife, for our life together?"