"It is a strange time to talk of affection. I went away for a week, and in my absence you insulted me by debauchery with a creature like that. Love? You have no conception of the meaning of the word. Oh no, I shall never live with you again."
Babcock clinched his palms in his distress and walked up and down. She stood pale and determined looking into space. Presently he turned to her and asked with quiet but intense solicitude, "You don't mean that you're going to leave me for one fault, we being husband and wife and the little girl in her grave? I said you don't understand and you don't. A man's a man, and there are times when he's been drinking when he's liable to yield to temptation, and that though he's so fond of his wife that life without her would be misery. This sounds strange to a woman, and it's a poor excuse. But it ought to count, Selma, when it comes to a question of our separating. There would be happy years before us yet if you give me another chance."
"Not happy years for me," she replied concisely. "The American woman does not choose to live with the sort of man you describe. She demands from her husband what he demands from her, faithfulness to the marriage tie. We could never be happy again. Our ideal of life is different. I have made excuses for you in other things, but my soul revolts at this."
Babcock looked at her for a moment in silence, then he said, a little sternly, "You shouldn't have gone away and left me. I'm not blaming you, but you shouldn't have gone." He walked to the window but he saw nothing. His heart was racked. He had been eager to humiliate himself before her to prove his deep contrition, but he had come to the end of his resources, and yet she was adamant. Her charge that she had been making excuses for him hitherto reminded him that they had not been really sympathetic for some time past. With his back turned to her he heard her answer:
"It was understood before I agreed to marry you that I was to be free to follow my tastes and interests. It is a paltry excuse that, because I left you alone for a week in pursuit of them, I am accessory to your sin."
Babcock faced her sadly. "The sin's all mine," he said. "I can't deny that. But, Selma, I guess I've been pretty lonely ever since the baby died."
"Lonely?" she echoed. "Then my leaving you will not matter so much. Here," she said, slipping off her wedding-ring, "this belongs to you." She remembered Mrs. Earle's proceeding, and though she had not yet decided what course to pursue in order to maintain her liberty, she regarded this as the significant and definite act. She held out the ring, but Babcock shook his head.
"The law doesn't work as quick as that, nor the church either. You can get a divorce if you're set on it, Selma. But we're husband and wife yet."
"Only the husk of our marriage is left. The spirit is dead," she said sententiously. "I am going away. I cannot pass another night in this house. If you will not take this ring, I shall leave it here."
Babcock turned to hide the tears which blinded his eyes. Selma regarded him a moment gravely, then she laid her wedding-ring on the table and went from the room.