"Damn you, don't talk."
She did not move. Her eyes were on the ground. Pride and Fear were having their last struggle, and Fear conquered. Without looking at her husband she could feel that his patience was nearing an end. Very slowly she stooped down and picked up the teapot and the broken cups and saucers and laid them on the table. Blindly she tottered over to the rocking-chair and burst into a passion of tears.
"And I thought I knew what it was to be unhappy!"
He watched her with a slight, but not unkindly, smile on his face.
"Come on, my girl," he said, without any trace of anger, "don't shirk the rest of it."
Through her laced fingers, she looked at the mess of spilled tea on the floor. Keeping her tear-marred face turned away from him, she slowly got up, and slowly found the broom and swept it all into a little heap on the newspaper that lay where he had left it.
Suddenly she threw back her head. Her eyes shone with a new resolution. He watched her, wondering. With a quick, firm step, she carried the rolled-up paper to the stove and shoved it far into the glowing embers. Gathering up the crockery, after a glance around the room in search of some receptacle which her eye did not find, she carried it over to the wood-pile, laying it upon the logs. The broom was restored to its corner. She took up her hat and coat and began to put them on.
"What are you doing?"
"I've done what you made me do, now I'm going."
"Where, if I might ask?"