"I mean that the time has come for us to separate, for the good of all of us." She looked straight at him, until he dropped his red and watery eyes before her strong gray ones. There was a pause, a solemn pause in that poor family. "Children," said the older woman softly and timidly, "there is such a thing as carrying bitter words too far." "Mother, when two people come to the situation we're in, Jim and I," for the first time there was a semblance of sympathy for the man in her voice, "then I believe the only thing they can do, and stay decent, is to separate. To go on living together when they neither like nor love each other----" "How do you know? I never said that," Jim said humbly. "It is not what you say that counts. We don't love each other any more; that was over long ago; that's the whole trouble; that's why we quarrel; that's why you drink and I'm hateful to you--and it'll get worse and worse and more degrading if we keep on. Oh, I feel no better than a woman of the streets when I----" "Georgia," Mrs. Talbot raised her eyes significantly, glancing at Al, to warn her daughter against letting her son know a truth. "Oh, I have been thinking this over and over--for months," continued the wife, "and I kept putting it off. But now I'm glad I said it and it's done." "The church admits of only one ground for this," said Mrs. Talbot desperately, fighting for respectability; "do you mean that Jim has----" "I don't know----" "No," Jim denied indignantly, "you can't accuse me of that anyway." "And I don't care." "You don't care?" That was a most astounding remark, clear outside his calculations. Why--wives always cared tremendously. Every man knew that. "No, if need be I could forgive an act, but not a state of mind." Mrs. Talbot found herself literally forced to take sides with Jim. This was an attack on all tradition, on everything that she had been taught. "Why, I never heard of such talk in my life." But Georgia would not qualify. "Well, I think that's all." She walked to the door. "I suppose I have seemed very hard, but it was best to make the cut sharp and clean." There was no sign of relenting in the set of her mouth or in her narrowed eyes; and Jim knew it was nearly impossible to do anything with her when her nostrils grew wide like that. "All right," he mumbled, "have it your own way." "Try to brace up for your own sake, if you wouldn't for mine." That was her good-bye. She went from the room with Al. The mother waited behind. "She'll think better of this by and by, Jim. I'll speak to her about it now and then," she said, "and keep you in her mind. And I'm going to the priest about it, too. It's sin she's doing. And Jim----" "Yes?" he grieved humbly, almost crying. "You better go over to Father Hervey and tell him all about it." "Yes, I'll do that same."