“Because I loved him,” she replied, in a voice beginning to shake, as her eyes began to fill. “Oh, why do I talk about it? No one will ever understand. You are all alike, and blame me, because you don’t know what it is to love, as I love him. He came to me at last, after those awful months, and when he came into the room and shut the door behind him, and I looked up and feasted my hungry eyes on the sight of him, the love that shook my breast then was a thing you other women don’t know. He called my name. ‘Mimi,’ he said, ‘you have it in your power to make me happy, if you will.’ And I said: ‘I will do anything you ask.’ He came then and took me in his arms and told me he wanted me to get the divorce. He said he was selfish and vile and unworthy of me, that I would be happier without him, and a great deal more such trash, and I told him I had but one desire in the world, and that was to make him happy, and that I would give him the divorce. With those arms around me, and those eyes looking into mine beseechingly, there was nothing I could have denied him--only I had rather it had been the last drop of my blood he had asked for. That was not what he wanted, though, and I gave him what he did want. I asked him if it would not please him better if I were dead, and if he had said yes, I would have killed myself. But he said no, that would make him wretched; he only wanted me to let him be free, and to be free myself to marry some good man who would make me happy as I deserved. He knows that woman isn’t good; he told me so himself--at least he said she was utterly different from me, and so much more fit to be the companion of a poor devil like himself. I don’t know how it is,” she broke off, passionately, “but if being a devil could make him love me again, I’d be a devil, too, if I could! Of course you’re shocked, but I would! Well, no matter what happens, I’ve got that evening to remember. He had not been pleased with me for so long, that it was like heaven on earth to have him as he was then. He let me sit on his lap, and hold him tight around the neck, and kiss his curls and his eyes and his darling mouth. You needn’t look so horrified,” she said with sudden resentment, “he was my husband still, and he’s my husband now, and I’m proud and happy I can say it a little while longer.” At the last words her voice gave way completely, and she threw herself down on the lounge and burst into violent sobbing. It was piteous to see her, and Mrs. Bryan, in spite of the tempestuous indignation this recital had aroused in her, felt her heart grow soft with sympathy as she looked at the little figure, no bigger than that of many a child of fourteen, shaken with great sobs of anguish--the deep and incurable anguish of a loving and despised wife. She did her best to comfort her, and forced herself not to criticise, knowing intuitively what the poor little thing must have already suffered at the hands of her friends.