order of the play demanded. Oh, the misery of it all! He, Monross, poet,
lover, egoist, husband, to be confronted by this damnable defiance, this
early-born hate! What had he done! And in the brain cells of the man
there awakened a processional fleet of pictures: Rhoda wooed; Rhoda
dazzled; Rhoda won; Rhoda smiling before the altar; Rhoda resigned upon
that other altar; Rhoda, wife, mother; and Rhoda--dead!

But Rhoda loved--again he looked at the face. The brow was virginally
placid, the drooping, bitter mouth alone telling the unhappy husband a
story he had never before suspected. Rhoda! Was it possible this tiny
exquisite creature had harboured rancour in her soul for the man who had
adored her because she had adored him? Rhoda! The shell of his egoism
fell away from him. He saw the implacable resentment of this tender girl
who, her married life long, had loathed the captain that had invaded the
citadel of her soul, and conqueror-like had filched her virgin zone. The
woman seemingly stared at the man through lids closed in death--the
woman, the sex that ages ago had feared the barbarian who dragged her to
his cave, where he subdued her, making her bake his bread and bear his
children.

In a wide heaven of surmise Monross read the confirmation of his
suspicions--of the eternal duel between the man and the woman; knew
that Rhoda hated him most when most she trembled at his master bidding.
And now Rhoda lay dead in her lyre-shaped coffin, saying these ironic
things to her husband, when it was too late for repentance, too early
for eternity.