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Rh His voice was very calm and full of feeling; and she, also grown calmer, answered:

"You feel for her."

"I do."

"Well, then . . ."

"But you have no right to bring that up against me. I don't grant you that right . . . because, Tilly . . ."

"Right, right? What rights have I? I have no rights! . . . I live in your house on sufferance. . . ."

"Tilly, be careful!"

"Why should I?"

"You're destroying our happiness."

"It doesn't exist."

"Yes, it does . . . if . . ."

He passed his hand over his head. There was a cold wind blowing; and the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.

"If you would be reasonable."

"And share you?"

"Share me? . . . With whom?" he roared.

"Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, frightened, "but with . . . with . . ."

"With whom?"

"With them all."

"All whom?"

"Your family . . . all of them . . . whom you love more than me."

"I don't love them more."

"No, but you feel with them . . . and not with me."

"Then feel with me!" he implored, as though to save both her and himself. "Feel, Tilly, that I can't be a fashionable doctor, but that I have a large practice, a number of patients to whom I am of use."