“Not a straw. It was nothing to me that he loved you: the point was, did you love him? If not, then all was well: if so, our marriage was already at an end. But you mistake my drift. Falsehood is something more than fibbing. You never told fibs—except the two or three dozen a week that mere politeness required and which you never thought of counting; but you never told me the truth, Marian, because you never told your self the truth. You told me what you told yourself, I grant you; and so you were not conscious of deceit. I dont reproach you. Surely you can bear to be told what every honest man tells himself almost daily.” “I suppose I have deserved it,” said Marian; “but unkind words from you are a new experience. You are very unlike yourself to-night.” He repressed, with visible effort, an explosion of impatience. “On the contrary, I am like myself—I actually am myself to-night, I hope.” Then the explosion came. “Is it utterly impossible for you to say something real to me? Only learn to do that, and you may have ten love romances every year with other men, if you like. Be anything rather than a ladylike slave and liar. There! as usual, the truth makes you shrink from me. As I said before, I refuse further intercourse on such terms. They have proved unkind in the long run.” “You spoke plainly enough to her,” said Marian, glancing at the bed, “but in the long run it did her no good.” “She would have laughed me to scorn if I had minced matters, for she never deceived herself. Society, by the power of the purse, set her to nautch-girl’s work, and forbade her the higher work that was equally within her power. Being enslaved and debauched in this fashion, how could she be happy except when she was not sober? It was her own immediate interest to drink; it was her tradesman’s interest that she should drink; it was her servants’ interest that she should be pleased with them for getting drink for her. She was clever, good-natured, more constant to her home and her man than you, a living fountain of innocent pleasure as a dancer, singer, and actress; and here she lies, after mischievously spending her talent in a series of entertainments too dull for hell and too debased for any better place, dead of a preventable disease, chiefly because most of the people she came in contact with had a direct pecuniary interest in depraving and poisoning her. Aye, look at her! with the cross on her breast, the virgin mother in plaster looking on from where she kept her mirror when she was alive, and the people outside complacently saying ‘Serve her right!’” Marian feared for a moment that he would demolish Eliza’s altar by hurling the chair through it. “Dont, Ned,” she said, timidly, putting her hand on his arm.