Why did you let it go on?"
Ruth did not answer.
"I will tell you why. Because it saved you trouble. Because it gave you
more leisure for the sort of futile waste of time which seems to be the
only thing you care for nowadays. Don't trouble to deny it. Do you
think I haven't seen in these last few months that Bill bores you to
death? Oh, I know you always have some perfect excuse for keeping away
from him. It's too much trouble for you to be a mother to him, so you
hedge with your conscience by letting Mrs. Porter pamper him and
sterilize his toys and all the rest of it, and try to make yourself
think that you have done your duty to him. You know that, as far as
everything goes that matters, any tenement child is better off than
Bill."
"I----"
"You had better let me finish what I have got to say. I will be as
brief as I can. That is my case as regards Bill. Now about myself. What
do you think I am made of? I've stood it just as long as I could; you
have tried me too hard. I'm through. Heaven knows why it should have
come to this. It is not so very long ago that Bill was half the world
to you and I was the other half. Now, apparently, there is not room in
your world for either of us."
Ruth had risen. She was trembling.
"I think we had better end this."
He broke in on her words.
"End it? Yes, you're right.
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