"... And that was Thursday; your letter had come in the first mail; and--oh, hush, hush; it was not a wicked letter, David. Don't you suppose I know that, now? I knew it--the next day. And I read it. I don't know just what happened then. I can't remember very clearly. I think I felt 'insulted.' ... It sounds so foolish to say that, doesn't it? But I was just a girl then, and you know what girls are like.... David, I am not making any excuse. There isn't any excuse. I am just--telling you. I have to talk slowly; I am tired. You won't mind if I talk slowly? ... I suppose I thought I had been 'insulted'; and I remember something seemed to flame up. You know how it always was with me? David, I have never been able to be angry since that day. Isn't that strange? I've never been angry since. Well, then, I went out to walk. I remember Cherry-pie called down-stairs to know if I had a clean pocket-handkerchief. I remember that; and yet I can't seem to remember why I went out to walk. ... And he came up and spoke to me. Oh, I forgot to tell you: he'd been in love with me. I meant to tell you about that as soon as we were married.... Where was I?--Oh, yes; he spoke to me...." Her voice broke with exhaustion; she closed her eyes and lay back in the big chair. David put her hand against his face, and held it there until she opened her eyes. She looked at him dumbly for a little while; then the slow, monotonous outpouring of all the silent months began again: "And I said I hated you. And he said if I married him, it would show you that I hated you. David, he was fond of me. I have to remember that. It wouldn't be fair not to remember that, would it? I was really the one to blame. Oh, I must be fair to him; he was fond of me.... And all that afternoon, after he married me, I was so glad to think how wicked I was. I knew how you would suffer. And that made me glad to be wicked...." There was a long pause; he pulled a little shawl across her feet, and laid her hand over his eyes; but he was silent. "Then," she said, in a whisper, "I died, I think. I suppose that is why I have never been angry since. Something was killed in me.... I've wondered a good deal about that. David, isn't it strange how part of you can die, and yet you can go on living? Of course I expected to die. I prayed all the time that I might. But I went on living;--you are glad I lived?" she said, incredulously, catching some broken murmur from behind his hands in which his face was hidden; "glad? Why, I should have thought--Well, that was the most awful time of all. The only peace I had, just single minutes of peace, was when I remembered that you hated me." He laid his face against her knee, and she felt the fierce intake of his breath.