"And you thought this—" She broke off with a short laugh and sat there a moment trying to gain control of herself. When she spoke her voice was controlled but full of passion. "I don't think," she said, "that I've ever known of a more monstrous—a more insulting proposal being made by one woman to another!"
"Insulting?" faltered Harriett.
Ruth did not at once reply but sat there so strangely regarding her sister. "So this is your idea of life, is it, Harriett?" she began in the manner of one making a big effort to speak quietly. "This is your idea of marriage, is it? Here is the man I have lived with for eleven years. For eleven years we've met hard things together as best we could—worked, borne things together. Let me tell you something, Harriett. If that doesn't marry people—tell me something. If that doesn't marry people—just tell me, Harriett, what does?"
"But you know you're not married, Ruth," Harriett replied, falteringly—for Ruth's burning eyes never left her sister's face. "You know—really—you're not married. You know he's not divorced, Ruth. He's not your husband. He's Marion Averley's."
"You think so?" Ruth flung back at her. "You really think so, do you, Harriett? After those years together—brought together by love, united by living, by effort, by patience, by courage—I ask you again, Harriett,—if the things there have been between Stuart Williams and me can't make a marriage real—what can?"
"The law is the law," murmured Harriett. "He is married to her. He never was married to you."
Ruth began hotly to speak, but checked it with a laugh and sat there regarding her sister in silence. When she spoke after that her voice was singularly calm. "I'm glad to know this, Harriett; glad to know just what your ideas are—yours and Edgar's and Cyrus's. You have done something for me, after all. For I've grieved a great deal, Harriett, for the things I lost, and you see I won't do that any more. I see now—see what those things are. I see that I don't want them."
Harriett had colored at that, and her hand was fumbling in the little patch of clover. When she looked up at Ruth there were tears in her eyes. "But what could we do, Ruth?" she asked, gently, a little reproachfully. "We wanted to do something—what else could we do?"
Her tone touched Ruth. After all, what else—Harriett being as she was—could she do? Monstrous as the proposal seemed to her, it was Harriett's way of trying to make things better. She had come in kindness, and she had not been kindly received. It was in a different voice that Ruth began: "Harriett, don't you see, when you come to look at it, that I couldn't do this? Down in your heart—way down in your heart, Harriett—don't you see that I couldn't? Don't you see that if I left Stuart now to do the best he could by himself, left him, I mean, for this reason—came creeping back myself into a little corner of respectability—the crumbs that fall from the tables of respectability—! You know, Harriett Holland," she flamed, "that if I did that I'd be less a woman, not a better one?"
"I—I knew it would be hard," granted Harriett, unhappily. "Of course—after such a long time together—But you're not married to him, Ruth," she said again, wretchedly. "Why"—her voice fell almost to a whisper—"you're living in—adultery."