I accept it as a just retribution." No man possessed of the ordinary instincts of common humanity would have so greeted his wife just when she had emerged, spent and exhausted, from woman's supreme conflict with death.

But the fanatic loses sight of normal values, and Hugh, obsessed by his newly conceived idea of atoning for the sin of his marriage, was utterly oblivious of the enormity of his conduct as viewed through unbiased eyes.
The woman who had just fought her way through the Valley of the Shadow stared at him uncomprehendingly.
"Retribution ?" she repeated blankly.
"For my marriage--our marriage." Diane's breath came faster.
"What--what do you mean ?" she asked falteringly.

Suddenly a look of sheer terror leaped into her eyes, and she clutched at Hugh's sleeve.
"Oh, you're not going to be like Catherine?
Say you're not! Hugh, you've always said she was crazy to call our marriage a sin.

.

.