Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/228

 cause he wasn't proud, and happy. His mother sat there trying to raise his spirits, and each thing she said only drove them lower. In that curious clarity of mind which seemed to possess his soul, he knew with a kind of horror that he had wanted to waken alone, free, in a new country, where he would never again see Naomi, or his mother, or the lace curtains, or the familiar, worn rocking-chair. That, he saw now, was why he had wanted to die. And now he was back again, tied to them more closely than ever.

At last he said in a low voice, "It was like Naomi, wasn't it . . . to have twins?"

"What do you mean?"

He hesitated a moment, and then said, "I don't know . . . I'm tired . . . I don't know."

Again a silence. Deep inside him something kept urging him to break through all this web which seemed to be closing tighter and tighter around him. The last thought he could remember before slipping into the nightmare returned to him now, and, without knowing why, he uttered it, "There won't be any more children."

"Why?" asked Emma. "What are you trying to say?"

"Because I don't mean to live with Naomi ever again. It's a wicked thing that I've done."

She began to stroke his forehead, continuing for a long time before she spoke. She was having suddenly to face things—things which she had always known, and pretended not to know. At last she said, "Why is it a wicked thing to live with your lawful wife?"

The world began to whiz dizzily about his head. Odd flashes of light passed before his closed eyes. It