she had, even in the deepest secrecy, rebelled against fate, he had never dreamed.
She came to the table and struck the model aside with one angry blow.
"Shall I tell you the truth?" she cried, panting. "I have never believed in it for an hour—not for one hour!"
He could only stammer out a few halting words.
"This is all new to me," he said. "I did not know——"
"No, you did not know," she answered. "How should you, when I lived my whole life to hide it? I have been stronger than you thought. I bore with him, as I should have borne with him if he had been maimed or blind—or worse than that. I did not hurt him—he had hurt enough. I knew what the end would be. He would have been a happy man and I a happy woman, if it had not been for that, and there it is again. I tell you," passionately, "there is a curse on it!"
"And you think," he said, "that it has fallen upon me?"
She burst into wild tears.
"I have told myself it would," she said. "I have tried to prepare myself for its coming some day; but I did not think it would show itself so soon as this."
"I don't know why," he said slowly. "I don't know—what there is in me that I should think I might do what he left undone. There seems a kind of vanity in it."
"It is not vanity," she said; "it is worse. It is what has grown out of my misery and his. I tell you it is in your blood."
A flush rose to his face, and a stubborn look settled upon him.
