Slowly and deliberately she uttered these cruel words, which fell like ice on his heart, and showed him how utterly futile it was to hope for any reconcilement with this pure woman, so pure that she could neither understand nor forgive the infidelity of which she accused him. All his manhood arose in rebellion against such treatment, and, mad with anger, he stepped to her side as she turned to leave the room. "There is more to be said," he cried furiously. "I have told you the truth, which you decline to believe. But if I had conducted myself as you say--if I had voluntarily gone to this woman whom you hate, who is to blame, you or I? Have I not been a good husband to you since our marriage? Have I not striven by every means in my power to win your heart? and what have I received in return?--cold words and frigid smiles. Do you think that I did not feel all this? Yes, I did feel it, but you, wrapped up in your icy nature, cannot understand my feelings." "I have treated you with all respect----" "Respect! Respect!" he reiterated bitterly. "I ask for love, you give me respect. I ask for bread, you offer me a stone. All the feelings of my heart have been crushed down by your cold superiority, by your chilly self-respect, which forbade you giving to me those attentions that other men receive from their wives." "You dare to talk to me like this," she said angrily, "you, who have had no respect either for me or for your child!" "Ah, the child," he retorted with a sneering laugh, "it was the child that came between us. You have lavished upon it all the love and affection which is due to me. Am I not the child's father? Why should you treat me as if I were a block of marble? In my own house I have been lonely. In my own house I have been neglected, while you, leaving me to starve, gave all your love to the child." "Is it a crime for a mother to love her child?" "No, it is no crime. I did not say it was. But it is a crime--worse than a crime--to cherish and love the child to the exclusion of the husband and father. The husband has the first claim on the wife's heart, the child the second." "You are wrong." "No, I am right," he replied vehemently, "and if driven forth by neglect, and hungry for love, I left my home to go to another woman, you reproach me for what is your own work! But I have not done so. I have been as true to you as you have been to me. Alizon, let things be as they were before this miserable misunderstanding, and let there be love and affection between us. I will forgive you all the neglect I have suffered these eighteen months, if you will overlook my forgetfulness about Mrs. Veilsturm, and act towards me as a wife should act." "You forgive me," she said contemptuously, "you forgive me? No. It is I who have the right to do that. I do not forgive you. I never shall." "Are those your last words?" "My last words."