Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/388

378 Susan was clinging to him, and looking up in his face with streaming tears.

"Tom," said she, you are not telling me the truth. You are as changed as a human being can be, and yet keep the same body. Something has happened; and you shall tell me. I have certainly displeased you, and I cannot imagine how."

He loosened her arms from his neck, and put her away, not ungently, but very firmly.

"There is nothing to tell," he said. "I am not displeased. I must go now."

Susan's arms fell, her whole figure drooped. She stopped weeping, and looked piteously into her husband's face.

"Tom," she said; "you are very hard. I would not hurt you so for all the world," and she turned and left him.

All the long afternoon she sat like one in a dream of misery. It seemed to her as if the very sun had gone out. How helpless she was! How long could she live—she wondered over and over—if Tom continued like this!

When he came home at night, she studied his face timidly, and in silence. She tried to converse about indifferent subjects. There was no change in him; still the same frigid, distant civility; the glance, the tone of a stranger and not of a husband. By a great effort she kept back the tears. She was growing calmer now and more resolved. In a few minutes after tea was over, Tom said, with in attempt at ease:—