“But the hour that should have crowned me,
Cast all high hope adown,
And the time of trial found me,
A sinner, coward, clown.”
The thought that many of those who heard him declaim those lines, would be now recalling them, and perhaps be applying them to himself, half maddened him. And it was at this worst of all moments for her mission of reconciliation, that Madge entered the room.
With a rare gentleness she began to plead with him, reminding him of all the passionate love he had expressed for her up to the very moment, almost, when they entered the church together for that Sunday morning service.
He answered her coldly, sullenly at first. Then he grew pettishly angry with her, and snapped sharply at her, contradicting her in nearly all she said:
“But, Homer,” she pleaded again, and in the deep yearning heart to win him back to his old loving self, she knelt before him, and tried to take his hand.
With an angry exclamation, he rose sharply to his feet and thrust her away with his foot, as he cried:—
“I don’t want you! You go your way, I’ll go mine, and——”