"Maybe you'll remember what I said to you about Ronny just after we were--married. I don't guess you'll have forgotten, seeing things are as they are. What I said then stands now. If you'd been a man I'd have shot you down in your tracks when I got to home last night. That should say all that need be said about how I'm feeling now. You aren't a man, and you're my wife. Well--you're still my wife. That means it's up to me to keep you as though this thing hadn't broken things up. I intend to act as right as I can by you. This is your home. You must use it, if you feel that way. The Obar has to go on. It's your means of living. It's my means of living. Then there are others concerned in it. For these reasons I shall carry on things, and your knowledge of this sort of work should hand you a reasonable share in the running of this place. If you feel you can act this way, without remembering we're man and wife, why, I guess we can agree to live our--separate--lives under the same roof. If you don't feel you can do this, why, you need to say so right here an' now, an' state your wishes. I'll do my best to carry them through, provided you understand our lives are separate from now on. Do you get that?" Did she get it? Could there be any mistaking those cold tones, that ruthless decision? From slightly behind him Elvine had stood watching with straining eyes the still figure, speaking with so obvious a repression of feeling, his eyes steadily fixed upon the distant horizon. Once or twice an ominous flush had suddenly flamed up in her eyes. A deep flush had stained her cheeks. But as he ceased speaking the same shrinking, the same humility marked her attitude. She knew instinctively she dared not say the things she was yearning to pour out. She knew instinctively that any such course would at once break down that thin veneer of restraint he was exercising. And for perhaps the first time in her life she stood awed and cowed by a man. But this woman was the slave of her passions, and she knew it. It was this now that made a coward of her. With all the power of self in her she had abandoned herself to her love for her husband. And, with slavish submission, she was prepared to accept his words rather than banish herself out of his presence altogether. A mad, wild hope lay somewhere deep down in her heart that some day he could be made to forget. That some day, through what looked to her like endless days of devotion and help, she might win back something of what she had lost. She knew her own attraction. She knew her own powers. Might there not then be hope in the dim future?