I was silentfor a moment. Then I thought of the children.

"It musthave been difficult to explain to Robert, " I said.

"Oh, Inever said a word to either of them. You see, we only came up to town the daybefore they had to go back to school. I had the presence of mind to say thattheir father had been called away on business. "

It could nothave been very easy to be bright and careless with that sudden secret in herheart, nor to give her attention to all the things that needed doing to get herchildren comfortably packed off. Mrs. Strickland's voice broke again.

"And whatis to happen to them, poor darlings? How are we going to live?"

She struggledfor self-control, and I saw her hands clench and unclench spasmodically. It wasdreadfully painful.

"Of courseI'll go over to Paris if you think I can do any good, but you must tell meexactly what you want me to do. "

"I wanthim to come back. "

"Iunderstood from Colonel MacAndrew that you'd made up your mind to divorce him."

"I'llnever divorce him, " she answered with a sudden violence. "Tell himthat from me. He'll never be able to marry that woman. I'm as obstinate as heis, and I'll never divorce him. I have to think of my children. "

我半晌儿没有言语。后来我又想起了孩子们。

“这件事一定很难向罗伯特解释，”我说。

“啊，他们俩我谁也没告诉，一个字也没有说。你知道，我们回城的第二天他们就回学校了。我没有张皇失措，我对他们说父亲有事到外地去了。”

心里怀着这样大的一个秘密，要使自己举止得体、装作一副坦然无事的样子，实在很不容易。再说，为了打发孩子上学，还必须花费精力把样样东西打点齐全，也使她煞费苦心。思特里克兰德太太的声音哽住了。

“他们以后可怎么办啊，可怜的宝贝？我这一家人以后怎么活下去啊？”

她拼命克制着自己的感情，我注意到她的两手一会儿握紧，一会儿又松开。那种痛苦简直太可怕了。

“如果你认为我到巴黎去有好处，我当然会去的，但是你一定要同我说清楚，你要叫我去做什么。”

“我要叫他回来。”

“我听麦克安德鲁上校的意思，你已经决心同他离婚了。”

“我永远也不会同他离婚。”她突然气狠狠地说，“把我的话告诉他，他永远也别想同那个女人结婚。我同他一样，是个拗性子，我永远也不同他离婚。我要为我的孩子着想。”