When he had gone Beth appeared. To please Arthur, she had covered her cropped head with a white muslin mob-cap bound round with a pale pink ribbon, and put on a high ruffle and a large white apron, in which she looked pretty and prim, like a sweet little Puritan, in spite of the pale pink vanity; and Arthur smiled when he saw her, but afterwards grumbled: "Why did you cut your pretty hair off? I shouldn't have thought you could do such a tasteless thing."
Beth knelt down beside his chair to mend the fire, and then she began to tidy the hearth.
"Am I not the same person?" she asked.
"No, not quite," he answered. "You have set up a doubt where all was settled certainty."
She had taken off the gloves she wore to do the grate, and was about to pull herself up from her knees by the arm of his chair when he spoke, but paused to ponder his words. It was with her left hand that she had grasped the arm of his chair, and he happened to notice it particularly as it rested there.
"You wear a wedding-ring, I see," he remarked. "Do you find it a protection?"
"I never looked at it in that light," she answered. "In this vale of tears I have a husband. That is why I wear it."
There was a perceptible pause, then he asked with an effort, "Where is your husband?"
"At home, I suppose," said Beth, her voice growing strident with dislike of the subject. "We do not correspond. He wishes to divorce me."
"And what shall you do if he tries?" Brock asked.