He stepped forward with his dripping overcoat half off. “Where are you going?” She made no answer, but looked at him as she edged on farther to the door. “Where are you going? Answer me.” Her lips stiffly framed the word: “Out.” “Out! What do you mean?” He spoke roughly, in a terrible anxiety and anger mixed together. “What are you working yourself up to all this foolishness for?” Again she did not answer. He went on more sternly, yet with an undercurrent of entreaty: “Come in here and take off those things and be rational. Why do you look at me like that?” “You don’t care—any more.” Oh, if he would snatch her to him now, and press her to his breast, that she might feel his protecting arms around her! If he would kiss her now with the kisses she remembered, and love her, and comfort her, and send this horrible spirit out of her! How could he not know that that was the way to exorcise it, that it was what her spent soul craved? How could he keep from putting his arms around her when she was in agony? Never in his life had her husband been less likely to do so. The wild defiance in her eyes would have made any woman repulsive to him; he had all a man’s horror of a “scene,” mingled with a deeper disgust that she should be the actress in it, and his anger was the more that he felt the whole thing to be unnecessary. Underneath this anger, however, was the sense of responsibility for his wife’s welfare, such as one would have for a child, no matter how outrageous. “You don’t care!” She whispered the words again. “No, I don’t care for you when you act like this.” His voice was even sterner now; it was time that this travesty came to an end. She stared at him as before. “Then I’ll go!” she said wildly, and slipped past him out of the door and into the rain, running with swift yet uncertain footsteps down the black, wet street, listening, listening all the time for him to follow—listening as she ran. She walked more slowly now as she listened; she had gone nearly a block already toward the river. Oh, would he let her go? For one awful moment she feared that this phantasm might become a reality; and yet she knew, as well as she knew that she lived, that he would not let it be so. Yes, yes, there was his quick, sharp tread at last, gaining on her. He walked like the angry man he was, but the sound brought a furtive thrill of bliss to her. How strong he was when he was angry! He had had to notice her at last; he could think of nothing but her now. She trembled as he came up to her. He only said in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s time to stop this now; you’ll get wet.” He took her by the arm and turned her around, heading for home; the mere touch of his guiding hand on her arm sent warmth through her icy veins. She trembled as her feet tottered beside his, her strength suddenly spent with the breaking up of her long passion.