He paused. Her eyes had lowered from his face. She knew his unexpressed thought.
"And more than that, if you and I and the world thought straight, he would not be here now."
"No, I suppose not," she acquiesced quietly, following his thought word by word. "Well, as it is, I guess it's for life—for my life, at least."
"If one could only love enough—" he mused.
"Love!" she exclaimed passionately, at this blasphemous intrusion. "Does one love such as that,—the man who betrayed your youth?"
"Not you and I. But one who could love enough—"
Her disdainful smile stopped him.
"I followed him to the hospital. I took him here, I don't know why. I guess it's my fate. He was once mine, and I can't escape that—but as to love—do you think I am as low as that?"
"You have no duties except the duties love makes," the doctor suggested. "He is no longer even the man you married. He is not a man in any sense of the word. He is merely a failure, a mistake; and if society is afraid to rid itself of him, society must provide for him."
"Yes, yes," she murmured, as if all this were familiar ground to her mind. "But I am the nearest member of society—the one whose business it is to attend to this mistake. It's my contribution," she ended with a feeble smile.