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Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth), 1879-1971

"This Freedom"

To you I'd only--chucked it. Oh, but that hurt! That man's
supreme indifference, that is dominion."
He said, "I'll know it, dearest, for your sacrifice."
She put out a hand as if to hold that word away. "Oh, trust not
that. They talk of the ennoblement of sacrifice. Ah, do not believe
it. It can go too long, too far, and then like wine too long
matured... just acid, Harry. I never said a bitter thing to you
until--thus sacrificing. It is the kennel dog again. If I went on
I'd grow more bitter yet, more bitter and more bitter. It's why
women are so much more bitter than men. It's what they've sacrificed.
I'm going back, Harry. I've got to. You ask me if I've thought of
everything. I have; but even if I had not this outrides it all.
I have gone too far. She was right, that woman I told you of, who
said that for a woman, once she has given herself to a thing, there
is no comeback from it. I have tried. It is not to be done."
There was a very long silence. She said, "It's settled, Harry."
He said, "Nothing's been said, Rosalie, that gets over what I have
said. There's no home here while both of us are working. I have a
right to a home. The children have a right to a home. Nothing gets
over that."
She answered, "Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children
a home."
He said, "I am a man."
She answered, "I am a woman."



CHAPTER III


The thing goes now at a most frightful pace for Rosalie.


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