She heard a neighbouring clock strike five, and shortly after her
husband entered the room. Had she looked at him she would have seen
an inexplicable animation in his face. He paced the floor once or
twice in silence, then asked in a hard voice, though the tone was
quite other than before:
'Will you tell me what it was you talked of that day in the wood?'
She did not reply.
'I suppose by refusing to speak you confess that you dare not let me
know?'
Physical torture could not have wrung a word from her. She felt her
heart surge with hatred.
He went to the cupboard in which food was kept, took out a loaf of
bread, and cut a slice. He ate it, standing before the window. Then
he cleared the table and sat down to write a letter; it occupied him
for hall-an-hour. When it was finished, he put it in his pocket and
began again to pace the room.
'Are you going to, sit like that all night?' he asked suddenly.
She drew a deep sigh and rose from her seat. He saw that she no
longer thought of escaping him. She began to make preparations for
tea. As helpless in his hands as though he had purchased her in a
slave market, of what avail to sit like a perverse child? The force
of her hatred warned her to keep watch lest she brought herself to
his level. Without defence against indignities which were bitter as
death, by law his chattel, as likely as not to feel the weight of
his hand if she again roused his anger, what remained but to
surrender all outward things to unthinking habit, and to keep her
soul apart, nourishing in silence the fire of its revolt? It was the
most pity-moving of all tragedies, a noble nature overcome by sordid
circumstances.
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