If she resisted
his coaxing and grumbled, he always had his threat ready. He would
realise his profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch. Weeks
became months. In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem,
Alice had wanted to dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to
this. She was driven by desperation to swallow her pride and make a
companion of the girl. But she did not complain to her of her
husband--partly out of self-respect, partly because she was afraid
to. Indeed it was a terrible time for the poor Princess. She spent
the greater part of every day in a state of apathy; for the rest she
wept. Many a time she was on the point of writing to Richard, but
could not quite bring herself to that. She could not leave the
house, for it rained or snowed day after day; the sun seemed to have
deserted the heavens as completely as joy her life. She grew
feeble-minded, tried to amuse herself with childish games, played
'Beggar My Neighbour' with the servant for hours at night. She had
fits of hysteria, and terrified her sole companion with senseless
laughter, or with alarming screams. Reading she was no longer story.
And her glass--as well as her husband--told her that equal to; after
a few pages she lost her understanding of a she suffered daily in
her appearance.
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