of it all. Suddenly she sprang from the bed and stood over me, and there
was such anger in her eyes as I had never seen before nor have seen
since, nor did it last long then, for presently indeed it was quenched
in tears.

'What is it, wife?' I asked astonished.

'It is hard,' she answered, 'that I must bear to listen to such talk
from your lips, husband. Was it not enough that, when all men thought
you dead, I wore my youth away faithful to your memory? though how
faithful you were to mine you know best. Did I ever reproach you because
you had forgotten me, and wedded a savage woman in a distant land?'

'Never, dear wife, nor had I forgotten you as you know well; but what
I wonder at is that you should grow jealous now when all cause is done
with.'

'Cannot we be jealous of the dead? With the living we may cope, but who
can fight against the love which death has completed, sealing it for
ever and making it immortal! Still, THAT I forgive you, for against this
woman I can hold my own, seeing that you were mine before you became
hers, and are mine after it. But with the children it is otherwise. They
are hers and yours alone. I have no part nor lot in them, and whether
they be dead or living I know well you love them always, and will love
them beyond the grave if you may find them there. Already I grow old,
who waited twenty years and more before I was your wife, and I shall
give you no other children. One I gave you, and God took it back lest
I should be too happy; yet its name was not on your lips with those
strange names. My dead babe is little to you, husband!'