Then she went on: "So now you can suspect somebody else instead of me. And while we're on the subject of Pritchard let me tell you something else." "_Tell me_!" The mere thought that there was anything else to tell in which Pritchard was concerned was sufficient to give his voice a note of peremptory harshness. "I'm going to leave you." "So you've said before." "This time I mean it." "Well?" "And you can divorce me." He stamped his foot with irritation. "Don't be ridiculous, Helen. A divorce is absolutely out of the question." "Why? Do you think we can go on like this any longer?" "That's not the point. The point is that nothing in the circumstances provides any grounds for a divorce." "So that we've got to go on like this then, eh?" "Not like this, I hope. I _still_ hope--that some day--" She interrupted him angrily. "You _still_ hope! How many more secret visits to Clare do you think you'll make,--how many more damnable lies do you think you'll need to tell me--before you leave off still hoping? You hateful little hypocrite! Why don't you be frank with me and yourself and acknowledge that you love Clare? Why don't you run off with her like a man?" He said: "So you think that's what a man would do, eh?" "Yes." "One sort of a man, perhaps. Only I'm not that sort." "I wish you were." "Possibly. I also wish that you were another sort of woman, but it's rather pointless wishing, isn't it?" "Everything is rather pointless that has to do with you and me." Suddenly he said: "Look here, Helen. Let's stop this talk. Just listen a minute while I try to tell you how I'm situated. You and I are married--" "Really?" "Oh, for God's sake, don't be stupid about it! We're married, and we've got to put up with it for better, for worse. I visit Clare in an entirely friendly way, though you mayn't believe it, and your suspicions of me are altogether unfounded. All the same, I'm prepared to give up her friendship, if that helps you at all. I'm prepared to leave Millstead with you, get a job somewhere else, and start life afresh. We have been happy together, and I daresay in time we shall manage to be happy again. We'd emigrate, if you liked. And the baby--_our_ baby--our baby that is to be--" She suddenly rushed up to him with her arms raised and struck him with both fists on his mouth. "Oh, for Christ's sake, stop that sort of talk! I could kill you when you try to lull me into happiness with those sticky, little sentimental words! _Our_ baby! Good God, am I to be made to submit to you because of that? And all the time you talk of it you're thinking of another woman! You're not livable with! Something's happened to you that's made you cruel and hateful--you're not the man that I married or that I ever would have married. I loathe and detest you--you're rotten--rotten to the very root!" He said, idly: "Do you think so?"