"I hope you told him that I was a miracle of tolerance, and that I bore with a saintly submission what more irritable mortals were wont to go half mad about,--did you tell him this?"
"Yes; I said you had a very practical way of dealing with life, and never resented an unprofitable insult."
"How safe a man's honor always is in a good wife's keeping!" said he, with a savage laugh. "I hope your candor encouraged him to more frankness; he must have felt at ease after that?"
"Still he persisted in saying there must be no separation."
"That was hard upon you; did you not tell him that was hard upon _you?_"
"No; I avoided mixing myself up in the discussion. I had come to treat for you, and you alone."
"But you might have said that he had no right to impose upon you a life of--what shall I call it?--incompatibility or cruelty."
"I did not; I told him I would repeat to you whatever he told me as nearly as I could. He then said: 'Go abroad and live together in some cheap place, where you can find means to educate the children. I,' said he, 'will take the cost of that, and allow you five hundred a year for your own expenses. If I am satisfied with your husband's conduct, and well assured of his reformation, I will increase this allowance. '"
"He said nothing about you nor _your_ reformation,--did he?"
"How much will he make it if we separate?"
"He did not say. Indeed, he seemed to make our living together the condition of aiding us."
"And if he knew of anything harder or harsher he 'd have added it. Why, he has gone about the world these dozen years back telling every one what a brute and blackguard you had for a husband; that, short of murder, I had gone through every crime towards you. Where was it I beat you with a hunting-whip?"
"And where did I turn you into the streets at midnight?"
"Exactly; these were the very lies--the infernal lies--he has been circulating for years; and now he says, 'If you have not yet found out how suited you are to each other, how admirably your tastes and dispositions agree, it's quite time you should do so. Go back and live together, and if one of you does not poison the other, I 'll give you a small annuity.'"
"Five hundred a year is very liberal," said she, coldly.