“You took it.”
“I had to take it. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”
“You could have given it away—you could have come to me, and told me the truth—anything but this.”
“Could I have done any more good with it by giving it away than I have by keeping it? Think of what I have been able to do for my mother—my sister—our boy. Don’t you see? It wasn’t for myself I wanted the money. You will believe that, won’t you?”
“No! You have always wanted money. You never lost an opportunity to tell me how much I failed to give you. Now you’ve got it”—he glanced bitterly about him—“at the expense of your honor. You’ve lied to me, and tricked me, and made a fool of me, and now you’ve got it; and, to crown it all, you were even willing to let me share in it. You gave me that check, knowing all this.” He raised his hands in helpless fury. “My God! What a humiliation!”
Edith looked at her husband in a frightened way. “If he were alive to-day he would be glad to know that he had helped you,” she said pathetically, seeking some adequate answer to his accusations. Her choice was an unfortunate one—it only increased his rage.
“Stop!” he fairly shouted. “Don’t dare to say that to me! Do you think I would accept anything from him?—this man I loved and trusted and honored as a friend—this man that crept into my home and tried to ruin me—to take from me everything I held dear in the world—this liar—this hypocrite—this crook—to help me! God! You must have fallen pretty low to think that I would accept help from your lover!”
Edith cowered before his biting scorn. “Oh! How can you—how can you?” she sobbed. “I did not love him.”
“I would respect you more if you had. You might have been honest with him, at least, if you couldn’t be with me. No—you did not love him. You turned from me, and gave yourself to him because he had money! Money! Money! You—you—God, I can’t say the word! Don’t you know what they call women who sell themselves for money?”
She flushed darkly at his words. “Don’t dare to say that to me!” she cried. “I may have been disloyal—I may have intended to leave you—but I never wanted his money—never—not for myself. It was for the others.”