His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadily as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched. "The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land, and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town toward the south. We made a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper-mine. Of course I expected--" As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized with him. Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on. "Choo--choo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air. He sprang up and reached for his coat. She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly asked. "To take that train." "When are you coming back?" "I don't know." But his tone said, "Never." She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and--the babies?" "I'll send for you soon. Come, good-by!" He tried to put his arm about her. She stepped back. "Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo--choo!" whistled the engine), "you leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone. "What do you mean?" "I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go--I'll never be your wife--again--never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her chin trembled. "I can't face those fellows--they'll kill me," he said, in a sullen tone. "No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em exactly how--it--all--is. You've disgraced me and my children, that's what you've done! If you don't stay--" The clear jangle of the engine-bell sounded through the night as with the whiz of escaping steam and scrape and jar of gripping brakes and howl of wheels the train came to a stop at the station. Sanford dropped his coat and sat down again. "I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had a reproach in it that cut the wife deep--deep as the fountain of tears; and she went across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her face in the clothes on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently. The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal, whistling through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and endurance on his face that had never been there before. His very attitude was alien and ominous. Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off his coat and vest. "Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed." She did not stir--she might have been asleep so far as any sound or motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the little parlor, and she still knelt there, her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.