"Now, come, Caudle; don't let's quarrel. Eh! You're not in pain,
dear? What's it all about? What are you lying laughing there at?
But I'm a fool to trouble my head about you.

"And you're not going to let me know the secret, eh? You mean to
say,--you're not? Now, Caudle, you know it's a hard matter to put me
in a passion--not that I care about the secret itself: no, I
wouldn't give a button to know it, for it's all nonsense, I'm sure.
It isn't the secret I care about: it's the slight, Mr. Caudle; it's
the studied insult that a man pays to his wife, when he thinks of
going through the world keeping something to himself which he won't
let her know. Man and wife one, indeed! I should like to know how
that can be when a man's a mason--when he keeps a secret that sets
him and his wife apart? Ha, you men make the laws, and so you take
good care to have all the best of 'em to yourselves: otherwise a
woman ought to be allowed a divorce when a man becomes a mason: when
he's got a sort of corner-cupboard in his heart--a secret place in
his mind--that his poor wife isn't allowed to rummage!

"Caudle, you sha'n't close your eyes for a week--no, you sha'n't--
unless you tell me some of it. Come, there's a good creature;
there's a love. I'm sure, Caudle, I wouldn't refuse you anything--
and you know it, or ought to know it by this time. I only wish I had
a secret! To whom should I think of confiding it, but to my dear
husband? I should be miserable to keep it to myself, and you know
it. Now Caudle?

"Was there ever such a man? A man, indeed! A brute!--yes, Mr.
Caudle, an unfeeling, brutal creature, when you might oblige me, and
you won't. I'm sure I don't object to your being a mason: not at