As soon as they were alone, he began gently, "Alida--"

"Please don't speak so to me today. I've endured all I can. I can't keep up another minute unless you let things go on as they were. Tomorrow I'll try to tell you all. It's your right."

"I didn't mean to say anything myself till after supper, and perhaps not till tomorrow, but I think I'd better. It will be better for us both, and our minds will be more at rest. Come with me into the parlor, Alida."

"Well, perhaps the sooner it's over the better," she said faintly and huskily.

She sunk on the lounge and looked at him with such despairing eyes that tears came into his own.

"Alida," he began hesitatingly, "after I left you this noon I felt I must speak with and be frank with you."

"No, no!!" she cried, with an imploring gesture, "if it must be said, let me say it. I couldn't endure to hear it from you. Before you went away I understood it all, and this afternoon the truth has been burned into my soul. That horrible man has been here--the man I thought my husband--and he has made it clearer, if possible. I don't blame you that you shrink from me as if I were a leper. I feel as if I were one."

"I shrink from YOU!" he exclaimed.