Anyone glancing in would have imagined a quiet domestic hearth at that moment.

He, too, feeling physically weak, remained silent, feeling his soul absent from the scene.
Again she suddenly burst into tears, weeping bitterly.
"And the children," she sobbed, rocking herself with grief and chagrin.
"What have I been able to say to the children--what have I been able to tell them ?" "What HAVE you told them ?" he asked coldly.
"I told them you'd gone away to work," she sobbed, laying her head on her arms on the table.

"What else could I tell them?
I couldn't tell them the vile truth about their father.

I couldn't tell THEM how evil you are." She sobbed and moaned.
He wondered what exactly the vile truth would have been, had she _started_ to tell it.

And he began to feel, coldly and cynically, that among all her distress there was a luxuriating in the violent emotions of the scene in hand, and the situation altogether.
Then again she became quiet, and picked up her sewing.