“You ain’t my wife no mo’?  Hit ’s a lie, a damn lie!  You is my wife.  I ’s a innocent man.  No pen’tentiay kin tek you erway f’om me.  Hit ’s enough what dey ’ve done to my chillen.”  He rushed forward and seized her by the arm.  “Dey sha’n’t do no mo’, by Gawd! dey sha’n’t, I say!” His voice had risen to a fierce roar, like that of a hurt beast, and he shook her by the arm as he spoke.

“Oh, don’t, Be’y, don’t, you hu’t me.  I could n’t he’p it.”

He glared at her for a moment, and then the real force of the situation came full upon him, and he bowed his head in his hands and wept like a child.  The great sobs came up and stuck in his throat.

She crept up to him fearfully and laid her hand on his head.

“Don’t cry, Be’y,” she said; “I done wrong, but I loves you yit.”

He seized her in his arms and held her tightly until he could control himself.  Then he asked weakly, “Well, what am I goin’ to do?”

“I do’ know, Be’y, ‘ceptin’ dat you ’ll have to leave me.”

“I won’t!  I ’ll never leave you again,” he replied doggedly.

“But, Be’y, you mus’.  You ‘ll only mek it ha’der on me, an’ Gibson ’ll beat me ag’in.”

“Ag’in!”

She hung her head:  “Yes.”

He gripped himself hard.

“Why cain’t you come on off wid me, Fannie?  You was mine fus’.”

“I could n’t.  He would fin’ me anywhaih I went to.”

“Let him fin’ you.  You ‘ll be wid me, an’ we ‘ll settle it, him an’ me.”

“I want to, but oh, I can’t, I can’t,” she wailed.  “Please go now, Be’y, befo’ he gits home.  He ’s mad anyhow, ’cause you ’re out.”

Berry looked at her hard, and then said in a dry voice, “An’ so I got to go an’ leave you to him?”

“Yes, you mus’; I ’m his’n now.”

He turned to the door, murmuring, “My wife gone, Kit a nobody, an’ Joe, little Joe, a murderer, an’ then I—­I—­ust to pray to Gawd an’ call him ‘Ouah Fathah.’” He laughed hoarsely.  It sounded like nothing Fannie had ever heard before.

“Don’t, Be’y, don’t say dat.  Maybe we don’t un’erstan’.”

Her faith still hung by a slender thread, but his had given way in that moment.

“No, we don’t un’erstan’,” he laughed as he went out of the door.  “We don’t un’erstan’.”

He staggered down the steps, blinded by his emotions, and set his face towards the little lodging that he had taken temporarily.  There seemed nothing left in life for him to do.  Yet he knew that he must work to live, although the effort seemed hardly worth while.  He remembered now that the Universe had offered him the under janitorship in its building.  He would go and take it, and some day, perhaps—­He was not quite sure what the “perhaps” meant.  But as his mind grew clearer he came to know, for a sullen, fierce anger was smouldering in his heart against the man who through lies had stolen his wife from him.  It was anger that came slowly, but gained in fierceness as it grew.