“Look here,” she said, “you are better in every point than I am, you are better in brain, you are stronger, you have seen more, you know more, you are better all round. If you were a fool you see, I could despise you; if even you had once made yourself ridiculous in my eyes or had demeaned yourself, what I have to say would come easy.” “Come to the point at once, Gwen,” he said. “What is it?” She took no notice of his remark but went to the picture and drew the coverings over the face. “What has the doctor told you?” “The doctor has told me nothing definite.” She turned away to hide her hot face. “You know perfectly well,” she said in a low voice, “that I shall be the mother of a child of yours in some months.” “Yes,” he said gently. “But you do not know,” she went on, “you do not know that this is such a shame to me, such a deathly burning shame, that I hate the light, I hate the eyes of any human creature on me, I would like to fly in the night to some desert place, and hide myself.” “Are you mad, Gwen?” “No, I am sane, as sane as on the day I sold myself to you for an experiment. Can you not see, Humphrey, that I am as shameful, I, your wife, as any one of those women you told me of, not one of whom you loved—loved?” she added, with an involuntary raising of her head. “I am no nearer to you now,” she went on, “than I was that day, not a jot nearer, and yet I am going to be the mother of your child! Are you dense, Humphrey, or is it because you are a man and are grown used to chattels, that you cannot see the depth of my shame and humiliation, and the reasons for it?” She faltered and swayed slightly. “Sit down, Gwen, sit down at once.” He drew up the chair to her. “The situation seems a curious one,” he said at last, “this outbreak seems to be the climax to a long course of morbid thinking.” “You cannot understand,” she said faintly. “I confess I cannot, altogether. When you married me you were no ignorant girl—” “Humphrey,” she cried, her eyes absolutely burning on him, “I did not think that I should have to defend myself to you in this! I thought you would know the absolute ignorance of girls. It is no veiled ignorance, it is absolute, or else a mere vague—” “Dear, it was a cowardly and an unjust reproach. However, things have now come to a head with us, it is no use delaying, you want, I gather, a separation?” She started. “I thought I would like to go home for a time—alone.” For a minute Strange considered. “This is no time for softness or entreaty,” was the result of his reflections. “We need have no legal separation, Gwen—as yet,” he added, with slow emphasis. She trembled from head to foot, he saw it but went on calmly. “You are not strong enough now for any trouble of that sort, but later on, of course, some arrangement must be come to. By the way, what will your father and mother say of this?” “They will not say anything,” she said bitterly, “they will silently wonder together in the library.”