"Let me alone," she said piteously. "I don't want your attentions. I
have done with you for ever."

"Come, you must drink some of this nasty stuff. You will need strength
to tell your husband all the unpleasant things your soul is charged
with. Take just a little."

She turned her face away and would not answer. He brought another chair
and sat down beside her. "My lost, forlorn, betrayed one--"

"I am," she sobbed. "You don't mean it, but I am."

"You are also my dearest and best of wives. If you ever loved me, Hetty,
do, for my once dear sake, drink this before it gets cold."

She pouted, sobbed, and yielded to some gentle force which he used, as
a child allows herself to be half persuaded, half compelled, to take
physic.

"Do you feel better and more comfortable now?" he said.

"No," she replied, angry with herself for feeling both.

"Then," he said cheerfully, as if she had uttered a hearty affirmative,
"I will put some more coals on the fire, and we shall be as snug as
possible. It makes me wildly happy to see you at my fireside, and to
know that you are my own wife."

"I wonder how you can look me in the face and say so," she cried.