"You could divorce him."
"I've thought of that." (Somehow this shocked Merriam.) "But it would be too horrible. Have you read the divorce trials in the papers? With a Senator they would make the most of it. And Aunt Mary won't let me do that. It would ruin him politically, she says."
"Well, what if it did? How about you?"
"Oh, she loves him, you know. She thinks he can be brought to change his ways. She believes in him still."
"Do you?"
"No," said Mollie June, with the clear-eyed cruel simplicity of youth.
"He may die," was the thought in Merriam's mind, but this could not be said.
Full of pity, he gazed at her again, and something in the profile of her averted face overcame him. He started up on his elbow--all this time he had lain with his head on his arm on the pillow.
"Mollie June!" he cried, his voice softly raised.
She did not look at him.