"Lettice, did it ever occur to you that a wife's unjust suspicions may help a man on to disloyalty? You no sooner took my name than you became a personified suspicion. You claimed dominion over my very thoughts. My every movement seemed to arouse your mistrust. You put spies upon me, when I had not even a thought of disloyalty. I discovered it, and, though I am ashamed now of the boyish folly, it's none the less true that I first broke my solemn vow to you out of revenge for your unjust suspicion. Then you helped me with your money and with your astonishing ability to twist and turn everything to our advantage and profit; and let me say that your audacious plans were not always quite scrupulous, Lettice! But when I found that that troubled you not a bit, I somehow felt that my disloyalty was not worth troubling about either. I was truly grateful for your help, but you wanted me on my knees, and you rubbed the service in so hard that it became unendurable, and I was in torment until I paid you the money back, with interest. But still you feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude, because, finding me an artist, full of dreams and willing to wait for their fulfilment, you have made of me a showman instead--a successful one at that. And now we have become such strangers that we place the ocean between us, for the comfort of its vast breadth dividing us. Lettice, we can't be less to each other than we are, and yet you reproach me with my infidelities. I can't understand why. I can't even understand why you married me. If you had ever loved me"--(he was busy with the pencils, he never saw the slowly rising blood creeping up even to the roots of her hair)--"but you never did, even at the first. I suppose you could not resist that craving you had to show what you could do with me, how you could push me. Lettice, don't you want to accept half of my earnings, and--and take your freedom--your legal freedom, I mean--without any blame being attached to you? Lettice, cast back my name, you can't care for it longer. See, I humble myself to entreat your favor in this matter! Accept your freedom--become once more Lettice Rowland!" And, as the urgent voice ceased, Lettice asked, coldly: "Why?" and then had followed the silence. And the man with the restless fingers saw all the time the dark, stricken face of the girl he loved, and seemed to hear the rapid, uneven footfalls of the young creature pursued by bitter memories through the heavy hours of the night, and the perspiration stood upon his forehead.