"You did," he shouted, and smote the table beside which he stood so violently that the glasses on it jingled and the water was spilled again. This time he allowed it to remain; he appeared not to see it in his outburst of noisy passion. "But you weren't honest with me even then. You concealed this thing from me deliberately. You deceived me. I believed you were a simple-hearted girl whose love I could win with kindness. And I was kind to you. I have tried to be kind always-- though God knows! I received small return. Do you suppose I would have married you had you told me that you loved another man? I could feel some respect for you had you persisted in your refusal; I feel none for you now. It was an evil day for me when you married me." "It was the one big mistake of my life," she answered, and turned and faced him fully, with blue eyes aflame with anger, her head lifted proudly, almost aggressively, her face expressing cold dislike. She had never loved Edward Morgan, but she had not until then actively disliked him. His blustering anger, and his ill-considered taunts repelled her. "If you care to have a separation I am quite agreeable. I think we shall be happier apart." "I don't doubt you would like that," he said brutally. "To be free to gallivant in your frivolous way at my expense, and under the protection of my name! I prefer to exercise full control over my wife. You are my wife, remember. Nothing's going to alter that. And since you bear my name I will see that you respect it. There's going to be no scandal in this family. Separation! So that's what you are after! Good God! I would sooner see you lying dead in your coffin than that you should disgrace the name of Morgan by dragging it into the courts." She smiled coldly. His arrogant rhetoric recalled annoyingly William's pride in the Graynor Honour. They both seemed to fear these things were in jeopardy through her. The tissue-paper wrappings in which they preserved these qualities appeared to her as consistent as they were inadequate. There was a hollow ring in all this noisy talk. Respect was to her a personal attribute, which revealed itself daily in the commonplace round of homely things. She was not in the least concerned as to its chance of safe keeping in her possession. "I'll go to bed," she said. "It isn't very profitable to stay here wrangling at this hour of night. And to-morrow I will go home. I want to get away. I am weary of everything." "_This_ is your home," he said sharply. Prudence looked at him strangely. "This has never been home to me," she replied. "It is your home. It is more your mother's home than mine. I have not even authority to order the meals, or direct the household." "That's your own fault," he returned curtly. "You evinced no interest in these matters." "Largely, it is my own fault," she agreed, with surprising meekness. "I am responsible for the arrangement of my life, and I have done it very badly."