“What, Madge?”
“I don't know what you would think if I said it.”
“Say it, please.”
She glanced into his face. He saw with surprise that her eyes were shining. “Well—I was—going to say—that—that—I'm about through with him.”
“Do you mean that, Madge?”
She was silent; perhaps she had not meant to say so much.
“Has he been ugly to you?”
“It isn't his meanness altogether. If that were all, I could have stood it. I have tried hard enough to love him all the while. Even after he first struck me—”
“You don't mean—”
She smiled, half bitterly, and rolled her sleeve up above her elbow. Even in that faint light he could see the discoloration on her forearm. “He meant it for my head,” she said.