That her deserter should greet her so after five years of such offence to
a woman's self-respect, as might entitle her to become a rebel against
matrimony, was too cruel to be borne. This feeling suddenly became alive
in her, in spite of a joy in her heart different from that which she had
ever known; in defiance of the fact that now that they were together once
more, what would she not do to prevent their being driven apart again!

"After abandoning me for five years, is that all you have to say to me,
Shiel? After I have suffered before the world--"

He threw up his arms with a passionate gesture. "The world!" he
exclaimed--"the devil take the world! I've been out of it for five
years, and well out of it. What do I care for the world!"

She drew herself up in a spirit of defence. "It isn't what you care for
the world, but I had to live in it--alone, and because I was alone,
eyebrows were lifted. It has been easy enough for you. You were where
no one knew you. You had your freedom"--she advanced to the table, and,
as though unconsciously, he did the same, and they gazed at each other
over the white linen and its furnishings--"and no one was saying that
your wife had left you for this or that, because of her bad conduct or of
yours. Either way it was not what was fair and just; yet I had to bear
and suffer, not you. There is no pain like it. There I was in misery
and--"

A bitter smile came to his lips. "A woman can endure a good deal when
she has all life's luxuries in her grasp. Did you ever think, Mona, that
a man must suffer when he goes out into a world where he knows no one,
penniless, with no trade, no profession, nothing except his own helpless
self? He might have stayed behind among the luxuries that belonged to