She turned a quick, scared face upon him for an instant.  But only for an instant.  Her hysteric little laugh returned, at once, followed by her weary, worried look.  “No, Jack, you don’t know him!  If it was only that!  He cares only for me in his own way,—­and,” she stammered as she went on, “I’ve no luck in making him happy.”

She stopped.  The wind shook the house and fired a volley of rain against the windows.  She took advantage of it to draw a torn lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket behind, and keeping the tail of her eyes in a frightened fashion on Jack, applied the handkerchief furtively, first to her nose, and then to her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” said Jack fastidiously, “it’s wet enough outside.”  Nevertheless, he stood up and gazed at her.

“Well,” he began.

She timidly drew nearer to him, and took a seat on the kitchen table, looking up wistfully into his eyes.

“Well,” resumed Jack argumentatively, “if he won’t ‘chuck’ you, why don’t you ‘chuck’ him?”

She turned quite white, and suddenly dropped her eyes.  “Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly, “lots of girls would do that.”

“I don’t mean go back to your old life,” continued Jack.  “I reckon you’ve had enough of that.  But get into some business, you know, like other women.  A bonnet shop, or a candy shop for children, see?  I’ll help start you.  I’ve got a couple of hundred, if not in my own pocket in somebody’s else, just burning to be used!  And then you can look about you; and perhaps some square business man will turn up and you can marry him.  You know you can’t live this way, nohow.  It’s killing you; it ain’t fair on you, nor on Rylands either.”

“No,” she said quickly, “it ain’t fair on him.  I know it, I know it isn’t, I know it isn’t,” she repeated, “only”—­She stopped.

“Only what?” said Jack impatiently.

She did not speak.  After a pause she picked up the rolling-pin from the table and began absently rolling it down her lap to her knee, as if pressing out the stained silk skirt.  “Only,” she stammered, slowly rolling the pin handles in her open palms, “I—­I can’t leave Josh.”

“Why can’t you?” said Jack quickly.

“Because—­because—­I,” she went on, with a quivering lip, working the rolling-pin heavily down her knee as if she were crushing her answer out of it,—­“because—­I—­love him!”

There was a pause, a dash of rain against the window, and another dash from her eyes upon her hands, the rolling-pin, and the skirts she had gathered up hastily, as she cried, “O Jack!  Jack!  I never loved anybody like him!  I never knew what love was!  I never knew a man like him before!  There never was one before!”

To this large, comprehensive, and passionate statement Mr. Jack Hamlin made no reply.  An audacity so supreme had conquered his.  He walked to the window, looked out upon the dark, rain-filmed pane that, however, reflected no equal change in his own dark eyes, and then returned and walked round the kitchen table.  When he was at her back, without looking at her, he reached out his hand, took her passive one that lay on the table in his, grasped it heartily for a single moment, laid it gently down, and returned around the table, where he again confronted her cheerfully face to face.