As he waited for her, he fidgeted uneasily. This night, he believed was to be a great climax in his life. He wondered how Marjorie would act, how she would feel (he could not, even in his selfishness engendered and nurtured by Geraldine DeLacy through the past weeks keep from one thought of this kind)—what she would say. Oh, well, he might as well make up his mind that whatever she would say it would be unpleasant. But it would be for the last time. So thoroughly had his selfish desires gained a hold on the man who had once been so stanch and upright that the time had come when he could wait no longer. But just how much of his impatience was due to the subtle urging of Geraldine DeLacy even he did not know. So he waited nervously, picking up a book here, an ornament there, examining the intricacies of the carved woodwork during what seemed the unconscionable time it took Marjorie to appear. But his wife had not kept him waiting. Instead, so unusual had been the request that Griggs purveyed to her that she rose at once, placed the book she had been reading on the table, and hurried down. Hugh lost no time. He did not mean to mince matters in this interview. “Marjorie,” he began at once when she stood before him inquiringly. “I’ll not keep you long. What I have to say may be said quickly, but the time has come to say it and I hope you’ll be reasonable.” Marjorie sat down quietly. “Yes, Hugh,” she replied, outwardly calm enough, but seized with a nervous inward trembling. Hugh dropped the cigar he had been picking to pieces, crossed over and stood facing her, his arms folded across his chest. “Marjorie, you know just as well as I do,” he went directly to the point, “that you and I haven’t been congenial for a very long time.” “I tried to remedy it, though, Hugh,” she answered quickly, “only a short time ago, but you refused to meet me even half way.” Her husband’s brows contracted in annoyance. “I told you at that time that it was entirely too late,” was his impatient comment. “Your years of indifference have killed something inside of me that nothing can ever bring to life again.” “I—I don’t understand,” she ventured feebly, and the sobs she had sought to hold back shook her slender frame. The sight but annoyed the man the more. “Please refrain from creating a scene,” he admonished coldly. “It will not in the least facilitate matters.” Hopeless as she felt it in her innermost being to be, Marjorie Benton felt that she must struggle with all her might through one other battle in an effort to keep her husband—he who was all in the world to her, though he so little realized it. She looked up at him, her hands clasped tightly for self-control (Hugh always did so dislike tears, she remembered), her eyes pleading.