"Absolutely."
"Could you--could you--make yourself free?"
"Yes, as you mean it, I could."
"Then--when?"
"Never!" The word rang clear, tensely vibrant with denial.
"Edith! What do you mean?"
Releasing herself she stood and faced him. "This," she said. "At the altar I pledged myself in these words: 'Until death do us part,' and 'Forsaking all others, keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.' Isn't that plain?"
"The law," he began.
"Law!" repeated Edith. "Why don't you say perjury, and be done with it?"
"Dearest, you don't understand. You----"
"I know what I said," she reminded him, grimly. "I said 'For better or worse,' not 'for better' only."
What of Miss Starr?
"You promised to love and to honour also, didn't you?"
Edith bowed her head. "I did," she answered, in a low tone, "and I have, and, God helping me, I shall do so again."
"Have I no rights?" he asked, with a sigh.
He could scarcely hear the murmured answer: "None."
"Nor you?"
She shook her head sadly, avoiding his eyes, then suddenly turned and faced him. "What of your own honour?" she demanded. "What of Miss Starr?"
"I have thought of that," he replied, miserably. "I have thought of nothing else all day."
Edith leaned back against the table. "What," she asked, curiously, "were you planning to do?"
The dull colour rose to his temples. "Go to her," he said, with his face averted, "tell her the truth like a man, and ask for freedom."
She laughed--the sort of laugh one hears from a woman tossing in delirium. Madame heard it, up-stairs, and shuddered.
"Like a man!" Edith repeated, scornfully.
"Say it," he said, roughly. "Like a cad, if that's what you mean."
She laughed again, but with a different cadence. "Ask yourself first," she continued, "and then be honest with me. How would you feel?"
Suppose There Is Another Woman
He shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "I admit it, but I'm willing to pay the price. I'll feel like a cad all the rest of my life, if I must, in order to have you."
"If a man has no self-respect," she retorted, "what can he expect from his----"