wish you had not made it necessary for me to be so tryingly frank."

Her reply stung him deeply. With tightening lips he turned away, and
muttered under his breath, "I am, indeed, right! She has not the
slightest love left for me; it will delight her to be free."

"Grace," he said, a little sadly--but, unfortunately, also again
sternly--as he halted by her side, "You and I, like so many others,
evidently were not intended for each other."

Her clasped hands tightened, but he did not notice it; he was sure
that he thoroughly understood her now.

"It is a pity," he went on, grimly, with his eyes fixed on the carpet,
"that human nature is not gifted with the faculty of reading the
future; so many mistakes and so much suffering would be prevented."
He was thinking more of the unhappy days she must have spent with him,
during the past two years, than of his own disappointment in her. But
she did not understand the words in this way, and thinking he wanted
her to know what a terrible mistake he had made when he married her,
five years ago, her high-strung, nervous temperament was aroused still
more, and rising quickly, she said, almost recklessly:

"I never knew before, Harold, that you were such a humanitarian and
had such lofty longings to save others suffering; indeed, were you not
evidently so much in earnest, I should certainly think that you were
indulging in jests." Somehow her low laugh, this time, hardly rang
true.

The cynical reply caused her husband's figure to straighten out