She said there was nothing like selfishness to tarnish the beautiful fabric of married life.

(Isn't that a lovely sentence?
I said that over and over to myself so as to be sure and remember it, so I could get it into this story.

I thought it was beautiful.) She said a lot more--oh, ever so much more; but I can't remember it all.

(I lost some while I was saying that sentence over and over, so as to remember it.) I know that she went on to say that by and by the tarnish began to dim the brightness of my life, too; and that was the worst of all, she said--that innocent children should suffer, and their young lives be spotted by the kind of living I'd had to have, with this wretched makeshift of a divided home.

She began to cry again then, and begged me to forgive her, and I cried and tried to tell her I didn't mind it; but, of course, I'm older now, and I know I do mind it, though I'm trying just as hard as I can not to be Mary when I ought to be Marie, or Marie when I ought to be Mary.