She rested her chin upon her hands, folded upon the high chair back, and gazed at him with her tawny eyes, that somehow reminded Kent of a lioness in a cage. He thought swiftly that a lioness would have as much mercy as she had in that mood. “Mr. Burnett,” she began quietly, when Kent's nerves were beginning to feel the strain of her silent stare, “I want to see Manley _as he is now_. I will tell you why. You aren't a woman, and you never will understand, but I shall tell you; I want to tell _somebody_. “I was raised well--that sounds queer, but modesty forbids more. At any rate, my mother was very careful about me. She believed in a girl marrying and becoming a good wife to a good man, and to that end she taught me and trained me. A woman must give her all--her life, her past, present, and future--to the man she marries. For three years I thought how unworthy I was to be Manley's wife. _Unworthy_, do you hear? I slept with his letters under my pillow.” The self-contempt in her tone! “I studied the things I thought would make me a better companion out here in the wilderness. I practiced hours and hours every day upon my violin, because Manley had admired my playing, and I thought it would please him to have me play in the firelight on winter evenings, when the blizzards were howling about the house! I learned to cook, to wash clothes, to iron, to sweep, and to scrub, and to make my own clothes, because Manley's wife would live where she could not hire servants to do these things. I lived a beautiful, picturesque dream of domestic happiness. “I left my friends, my home, all the things I had been accustomed to all my life, and I came out here to live that dream!” She laughed bitterly. “You can easily guess how much of it has come true, Mr. Burnett. But you don't know what it costs a girl to come down from the clouds and find that reality is hard and ugly--from dreaming of a cozy little nest of a home, and the love and care of--of Manley, to the reality--to carrying water and chopping wood and being left alone, day after day, and to find that his love only meant--Oh, you don't know how a woman clings to her ideals! You don't know how I have dung to mine. They have become rather tattered, and I have had to mend them often, but I have clung to them, even though they do not resemble much the dreams I brought with me to this horrible country. “But if it's true, what you tell me--if Manley himself is another disillusionment--if beyond his selfishness and his carelessness he is a drunken brute whom I can't even respect, then I'm done with my ideals. I want to see him just as he is. I want to see him once without the halo I have kept shining all these months. I've got my life to live--but I want to face facts and live facts. I can't go on dreaming and making believe, after this.” She stopped and looked at him speculatively, absolutely without emotion.