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Rh realise that your life is the family, and that the man has his life away from you."

"I think you're wrong!" said Teresa quickly. "You gave yourself too much to the children. Sometimes I think it would be better if one hadn't children."

"Teresa! You don't think so! A marriage without children—you might as well be simply a man's mistress. … It's more you want, not less. It was a great, great pity about the baby, poor darling. You wouldn't give up Ronald, would you?"

"I wonder," said Teresa, "if a man one loved couldn't make up?"

"No! They're a woman's real life, children. Man's only an accident in comparison."

"I think it's the other way round."

"Then if you really think that, Teresa, you're more of a mistress than a wife. But I don't believe you do."

Teresa was silent again, for some moments. Then she asked reflectively:

"Could you have ever cared for anyone else—since you were married, I mean?" Nina flushed deeply. "That would be committing a mortal sin," she said, and her blue eyes shone with a cold light. Teresa looked at her, estimating the depth of the gulf that lay between them. She could conceive a mortal sin, but it was not love