'I'm going to dress,' Dot said from the door. 'How do you propose getting there?' He did not look at her as he spoke. She twisted the handle. 'Of course I had expected you would come. As it is I have sent word to mother, she is coming down in the buggy for me at seven. Mr Wooster is going there for dinner, he will drive. No, mother doesn't know; I only said you couldn't come.' Larrie got up and walked to the window; he could not answer her. She looked at his big square back for a minute and the short-clipped curls on his head. Then she turned and went away to dress. Only a thin partition separated her bedroom. He heard every sound as he stood in the window, the opening and shutting of drawers, the plashing of water, her hurrying steps across the floor, the creak of the wardrobe door. Every minute he thought she would repent and come in to him, his own sweet, small wife again; then the thought became a hope, and when the wardrobe creaked the hope died, and there was almost a prayer instead. But the door opened and she came in fully dressed. It was her wedding dress she wore, the white, trailing, exquisite silk she had knelt beside him in at the altar eighteen months ago. It was cut a little low now, and showed her white, soft neck and chest; her arms were bare between the shoulder puff and glove top. 'Larrie,' she said with a little cry, 'oh, let me, Larrie!' But he stood still. '_That_ dress!' he said hoarsely. In very truth she had not thought of the associations of it as she had slipped it on to-night in excitement and anger. 'You--you know I had it made into an evening dress,' she faltered. 'But for this!' 'I had nothing else to wear.' He turned from her one minute, then back again, and looked at her with wrathful eyes. He had a wild impulse to force her to stay, to compel her to obey him by the superiority of his physical strength. Was she not his wife, his property, did she not belong to him till death? He almost thought he would get a whip and beat her, beat her savagely. She would love him better he felt certain; he told himself there was more truth than half the world dreamt in the saying that wife-beaters, always provided they are neither drunk nor brutal, are best beloved by their wives. But he knew in a calmer mood he would despise himself for doing it, and he felt, too, how imperfect would be the victory. 'You are going?' was all he said, and 'Yes,' she answered. Wheels sounded a little distance off, they both knew what it was. 'As surely as you go, Dot, you will repent it.' Larrie spoke slowly, quietly, his face was deathly pale. She was trembling from excitement, there was a vague fear in her eyes. 'What would you do?' she said with a little nervous half laugh. 'I would never forgive you, never have you for my wife again,' he answered, and his face looked as if he meant it. She shivered a little, but held her head proudly. 'Perhaps you would be glad of the excuse,' she said, with a pitiful attempt at scorn.