Westlake. It
maddened him that he had not the courage to take a single open step,
to forbid, for instance, all future correspondence with London. To
do so would be to declare his suspicions. He wished to declare them;
it would have gratified him in. tensely to vomit impeachments, to
terrify her with coarseness and violence; but, on the other hand, by
keeping quiet he might surprise positive evidence, and if only he
did!
She was ill; he had a distinct pleasure in observing it. She longed
for quiet and retirement; he neglected his business to force his
company upon her, to laugh and talk loudly. She with difficulty read
a page; he made her read aloud to him by the hour, or write
translations for him from French and German. The pale anguish of her
face was his joy; it fascinated him, fired his senses, made him a
demon of vicious cruelty. Yet he durst not as much as touch her hand
when she sat before him. Her purity, which was her safeguard,
stirred his venom; he worshipped it, and would have smothered it in
foulness.
'Hadn't you better have the doctor to see you?' he began one morning
when he had followed her from the dining-room to her boudoir.
'The doctor? Why?'
'You don't seem up to the mark,' he replied, avoiding her look.
Adela kept silence.
'You were well enough in London, I suppose?'
'I am never very strong.
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