I. A. R. Wylie

“ Eileen, this is the gentleman of whom I was speaking.”
She smiled faintly, with a bitterness that the darkness could not hide.
“I understand that you have come to help complete my husband's work?”
The man bowed, and for an instant his deep-set eyes met hers
“If it is possible.”
“May success crown the deserving!” She laughed lightly. “Good night, gentlemen. I'll leave you to your honorable labors.” ”

“ It's as if something had come between us—a barrier.”
“You imagine things,” he interrupted passionately, almost roughly. “You let the past stand between us. Won't you—can't you put it aside, forget it?”
“It haunts me,” she said piteously.
“You let it haunt you. It's that that is so hard to bear. The knowledge that you are forever looking back, lingering over what has been, drives me to despair. It makes me unjust to you, to little Fenton—to the dead——” He paused, watching her with the intentness of reviving hope. “Won't you give me a full, straight chance to win you—Eileen—even now? ”

“ He flinched under her white contempt, but, his jaw was set in dogged lines. “You made me a disloyal wife,” she said. “You made me ruin my husband.”
The persistent use of the name stung him to retort.
“I am your husband!”
“Is that true? In the eyes of the law, perhaps—not in mine. I warned you—five years ago—that if one of us had wronged Fenton, the barrier between us could never be surmounted. The barrier is there.”
“Eileen—I loved you! Can't you understand——”
“I understand that I have done a great wrong. How great the wrong is I can't know—perhaps I shall never know. ”