"It was very hot; even now when dusk was approaching. The girl had been
feeling rather ill all day; feverish. She had not been able to get away
to her country place as yet. Into the semidarkness of the room where she
was came her husband. That night she had determined, as women will, upon
a final test. She knew where he expected to dine; she asked him if he
would dine with her.

"'I can't,' he said. 'I'm sorry--'

"Possibly nothing immediate would have happened had he not added an
unspeakable flourish to his portrait. He reached out his arms and drew
the girl to him and tried to kiss her condescendingly; but I suppose his
hands found her, in her clinging gown, soft to their touch. At all
events, they tightened upon her in an unmistakable way. She pulled
herself away. 'Let me pass!' she said. 'You--you--!'--she could think of
no words to suit him. You see, she understood him completely, now. He
was a collector, but a collector so despicable that he was even
unwilling to trade one article for another. He wanted to keep on his
shelves, as it were, all the accumulation of his life, and take down
from time to time whatever part of it suited his sudden fancy.

"The girl went up to her own room, and very carefully, not knowing
precisely what she did, changed into a black street dress and removed
all marks of identification. Her eyes swam with feverishness. While she
was dressing, she bathed in hot water her arms where her husband's hands
had been. She concluded that it was not what he had done--had constantly
done--but what he was that made life unbearable. When she was through
she went downstairs, and out of the front door, and walked slowly toward
the center of the town and the railway station."