He licked his dry lips, furtively, always watching her. “If ever you would let me try to make amends--if you’d just let me work for you,--slave for you----” For an instant she stared at him, incredulous that she had heard correctly. Then wrath set her cheeks ablaze: but her voice remained controlled, and she chose and measured her words: “Listen to me, Stuart: I wouldn’t let you lift a finger for me; I wouldn’t let you touch me,--I don’t expect ever to see you again,--I don’t want even to hear of you. And that’s _that_!” “Do you hate me so bitterly, Eris?” he whimpered, cringing but always watching her face. “It isn’t hate. For what you did to an ignorant girl--for your deception, your meanness, your lying, I have no _hatred_. I don’t hate: I merely rid myself of what offends me.” He began to snivel again, seated on the edge of the box-couch, swaying from side to side: “I know I shouldn’t have married you. But I wanted to go straight. I was madly in love with you, Eris--and I haven’t changed. Haven’t you a word for me----” She gazed at him with a loathing in which no saving spark of anger mitigated the cold disgust. She said, slowly: “All I need ever say to you can be said through a lawyer. That is all that concerns you. If you wish to lie down, do so. I don’t want you here; but I wouldn’t turn a sick snake out of doors.” She left him and went back to her bed-room. For an hour she sat there, unstirring, waiting, listening at moments. The flush remained on her cheeks; and into her eyes there came a glint at times, as where storms brood behind grey horizons. The day, indeed, had bred storms for Eris--for Eris, daughter of Discord--sitting here in her dim chamber all alone. Twice after midnight she had gone to the little room off the pantry, only to find her husband heavily asleep. He seemed so wretched a thing, so broken, so haggard, that she had yet not found courage to awake him and send him into the street. So now, once more, she returned to her bed-room and her sombre vigil; sat there brooding, waiting, listening at intervals, wondering what to do, and how, and when. The fatigue of that unhappy day had strained her nerves, not her courage. But for the advent of this miserable man she would have had leisure to think about what was to be done for the future and face the fact that she was out of work. Now she felt too weary to think--too tired to examine the situation which so suddenly confronted her when Albert Smull flung his last insult in her shrinking face. Troubles thickened about her; trouble was invading her very door; but she was too sleepy to consider the misfortunes that involved her--the menacing situation at the studio--the sordid problem in the next room. Her little mantel-clock struck two o’clock before she finally summoned energy to rise and go to awaken her husband.