turning away from the door.

"Ah, let her go. It is no difference. She is a sow. Let her go."

"Thin she's not your wife at all?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, her wrath
rising at this discovery of further deception in Paulina.

He shrugged his shoulders. "She was once. I married her.
She is wife no longer. Let her go."

His contemptuous indifference turned Mrs. Fitzpatrick's wrath upon him.

"An' it's yersilf that ought to take shame to yersilf fer the way
ye've treated her, an' so ye should!"

The man waved his hand as if to brush aside a matter of quite
trifling moment.

"It matters not," he repeated. "She is only a cow."

"Let her come in," whispered Irma, laying her hand again on
Mrs. Fitzpatrick's arm.

"Sure she will," cried the Irish woman; "come in here, you poor,
spiritless craythur."

Irma sprang down the steps, spoke a few hurried words in Galician.
Poor Paulina hesitated, her eyes upon her husband's face. He made a
contemptuous motion with his hand as if calling a dog to heel.
Immediately, like a dog, the woman crept in and sat far away from