"And if I did, what should I get in return for all he has stolen from me? Could he give me back your heart? Could he blot out the past with his blood? Should I regain the pure thing I lost, the wife I treasured, the woman I adored? Think how he shattered my life and wrecked my happiness, when he enticed you with the golden apple, that rots and decays, turning to wormwood between the lips! You were allured by the seductive cajolery, the damnable influence of a scoundrel." Eleanor's breast heaves, she staggers forward in a frenzy. "Stop! What you say is false. I was not 'enticed.' I went because I loved him body and soul; because existence without him was empty--impossible. If I had stayed with you, loving him, I should not have been true to myself; I should have played the traitor in my own home; the curse would have been on you and on your children. If such a thing were possible, here in this new land, my passion developed, increased, tenfold. The night and day, the light, the darkness, they hold nothing for me but this rapturous love, all that is precious, tender, sweet. I have fed on in this paradise till _you_ came, like an image of death, to bring back all that is odious, hateful." "Yes," he replies slowly, "I can believe you were happy, clinging to the prize you held so dear. Your words have not surprised me, I have listened to them so often in fancy, picturing this scene, when you and I alone should stand together and bare our souls. I expected to hear your short-lived rapture hurled at me as a shield, a fortification! I am ready to judge it, to weigh it if you will, in the scales of right and wrong. Will you not continue?" His words wither Eleanor's defence; she shrinks back into herself. "Surely you have something more to say," with an ironical laugh, that re-echoes discordantly round the room. She shakes her head mournfully, and drops her hands to her sides. "Perhaps," he continues, "I was to blame. I was not in harmony with you; I failed to please." "Oh! Philip!" The words are a protest, wrung from the bottom of her soul. "Or I did not place sufficient confidence in you; we had 'family jars,' 'vexed questions,' 'disagreements.'" "Philip, for pity's sake----" He runs his fingers through the grey hair, lying moist upon his sun-bronzed brow. The crow's feet of sorrow furrow the corners of his eyes, which are stern, but not angry. They have looked for the last time on the golden season of life, now they stare at Eleanor as if reading in her face the key of the everlasting twilight that has fallen on his days. Instinctively she cowers back, hiding her burning face in her hands, red with a flush of deepest shame. "Don't shrink from me," he says. "It is almost incomprehensible, Eleanor, but----" She looks up quickly. "Ever since you left me I have had no thought but you. In life's morning you were my love, my all. I could not tear you from my heart had I wished to. But I never tried."