Presently the door opened, and Lizzie entered. She did not meet his following glance, but came forward with sullen, downcast eyes, and silently took her place at the table. The seven years had pressed upon her with the weight of fourteen. The devil had walked off with his own beauty. Although she was barely thirty, the plump freshness of youth had gone. The pink cheeks had paled and grown flabby; round contours had fallen into puffiness; the pout of the soft lips had relaxed into unlovely looseness of mouth marked by marring lines. A common, slatternly woman, with loose untidy hair and swollen eyelids, and dressed in an old morning wrapper, she was as unlike the rosebud bride of Sunington as the light is unlike the darkness; and yet by the inexorable law of development she was the same woman. She poured herself out a cup of tea and broke some dry bread on her plate. Neither had spoken. Goddard’s brow darkened a little as he went on with his breakfast and his papers. She stole from time to time a shifting glance at him. The expression of absorbed interest on his dark face irritated her. The dead silence became unbearable. Suddenly she thrust back her chair a few inches, and struck the table sharply with her fingers. “For God’s sake say something, can’t you,” she cried half-hysterically. Goddard looked up gravely and laid down his pencil. “What can I say to you, Lizzie?” “Anything. Curse me, nag at me--anything; only don’t sit there as if I was the scum of the earth and you God Almighty.” “Well, you have broken your promise once more. What else can I tell you? You can’t expect me to be pleased, and I see no good in cursing and nagging. So I hold my tongue.” “I wish I was dead,” said Lizzie bitterly. Goddard shrugged his shoulders. He had done his best according to his lights, and he had failed. Sometimes his heart echoed her wish. “You have only yourself to thank,” he said. “Have I? I’ve not got you to thank for anything. Oh dear, no! You know you hate me. You never did care for me. Even when we was first married you cared for your dirty old politics more than you did for me. Oh, why didn’t I marry Joe Forster? He has three big shops now, and can hold up his head as much as you can, for all you’re a County Councillor and have your name in the newspapers. And what good does that do to me, I’d like to know? It’s all your fault, every bit your fault, and you drive me to it; you know you do, and you’d be glad if I dropped down dead now.” It was not a new story. Her words had no longer power to move him to anger. He accepted her grimly as a burden he had to bear through life. “We made a mistake in marrying, Lizzie,” he said. “We both found it out long ago. I was not the sort of man you wanted, and perhaps I ought to have remained single. But I have done my duty by you honestly, and--so help me, God--I always shall. What is it you want that I do not try to give you?”