"Anything! Don't sit there like a cursed sphynx. How do you expect a man to come home when he finds things so disagreeable?" She looked at him scornfully. "You find things disagreeable," she said slowly. "You, who have neglected me ever since our marriage; who have passed your time with actresses and betting men; you, who--" "Go to the devil," said Malton sulkily, cutting short her catalogue of his vices. "I don't want you to preach. I'll go where I like, and do what I like." "Yet you deny me the right to do the same." "What do you mean?" "Mean!" she cried, rising to her feet; "mean that I'm tired of this sordid way of living. I'm tired of seeing you at the beck and call of every woman except your wife. I have tried to do my duty by you and the child, yet you neglect me for others. You squander your honestly earned money, and then embezzle thousands of pounds. I tell you, I'm sick of this life, Evan Malton; and if you don't take care, I'll make a change." He listened in amazement to this tirade coming from his meek wife, then, with a coarse laugh, flung himself back on the sofa. "You'll make a change!" he said, with a sneer. "You--I suppose that means bolting with another man--you do, my lady, and I'll kill you and your lover as well." "My lover, as you call him, could break your neck easily," she said contemptuously. "Then you have a lover!" he cried, starting to his feet in a transport of fury. "You tell me _that_--you a wife and a mother--in the presence of our child." Without a word, she touched the bell, and a maid-servant appeared. Mrs. Malton pointed to the child. "Take her away," she said coldly, and when the door closed again, she turned once more to her husband. "Now that the child is away," she said calmly, "I do tell you I have a would-be lover. Stay," she cried, holding up her hand, "I said a would-be lover. Had I been as careless of your honour as you have been of mine, I would not now be living with you." Evan Malton listened in dogged silence, and then burst out into a torrent of words. "Ah! I knew it would be so--curse you! What woman was ever satisfied with a husband?" "Yes, and such a husband as you have been," she said sarcastically. He stepped forward, with an oath, to strike her, then restraining himself by an effort, said in a harsh voice,-- "Tell me his name." Mrs. Malton walked over to a writing-desk, unlocked it, and taking from thence a bundle of letters, flung them on the floor before him. "You'll find all about him there." Malton bent down, picked up the letters, and staggered back, with a cry, as he recognised the writing. "My God! Fenton!" he cried. "Exactly," she said coolly. "Your dear friend Fenton, who came to me with words of love on his lips, and lies in his heart, to get me to elope with him--in the last letter, you see, he asked me to go with him to Valparaiso." "Oh, did he?" muttered Malton vindictively; "and you were going, I suppose?"