The broken log was blazing again quite merrily, the two ends far apart. "Why not have written instead of coming?" she demanded, as one who protested against some grievous injury; "it would have been far pleasanter for both. There's no sense in our harassing ourselves with personal interviews." "I preferred a personal interview." Ethel lapsed into silence; the man was a hopeless brute, and it was useless to expect courtesy from him. She tapped her foot against the fender, and a look of obstinacy and temper disfigured the soft outlines of her face. The silence might remain unbroken until the crack of doom for any further effort she would make. Thorne broke it himself. He was determined to carry his point, and in order to do so strove to establish ascendency over his wife from the start. "What's the meaning of this new move, Ethel?" he demanded, authoritatively. "I want to understand the matter thoroughly. Why do you want a divorce?" Mrs. Thorne turned her face toward him defiantly. "Because I'm tired of my present life, and I want to change it. I'm sick of being pointed at, and whispered about, as a deserted wife--a woman whose husband never comes near her." "Whose fault is that?" he retorted sharply; "this separation is none of my doing, and you know it. Bad as things had become, I was willing to worry along for the sake of respectability and the child; but you wouldn't have it so. You insisted on my leaving you--said the very sight of me made your chains more intolerable. Had I been a viper, you could scarcely have signified your desire for my absence in more unmeasured terms." "I know I desired the separation," Mrs. Thorne replied calmly, "I desire it still. My life with you was miserable, and my wish to live apart has only increased in intensity. You never understood me." Thorne might have retorted that the misunderstanding had been mutual, and also that _all_ the wretchedness had not fallen to her share; but he would not stoop to reproaches and vituperation. It was a natural peculiarity of her shallow nature to demand exhaustive comprehension for quite commonplace emotions. "It's useless debating the past, Ethel. We've both been too much to blame to afford the luxury of stone-throwing. What we must consider now is the future. Is your mind quite made up? Are you determined on the divorce?" "Quite determined. I've given the matter careful consideration, and am convinced that entire separation, legal as well as nominal, is absolutely necessary to my happiness." "And your reasons?" "Haven't I told you, Nesbit?" using his name, for the first time, in her anger. "Why do you insist on my repeating the same thing over and over, eternally? I'm sick of my life, and want to change it."