I have come back since you
refused to join me elsewhere--I have entered your father's house,
and borne all that that cost me without flinching, because I have
felt that I deserved humiliation. But is there a yet greater
humiliation in store for me? You say you have been living here--
that he is everything to you. Am I to draw from that the obvious,
the extremest inference?"
Triumph at any price is sweet to men and women--especially the
latter. It was her first and last opportunity of repaying him for
the cruel contumely which she had borne at his hands so docilely.
"Yes," she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded
nature which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so.
Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she
half repented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind
him. It seemed as if all that remained to him of life and spirit
had been abstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not move, and in his
efforts at self-control closed his mouth together as a vice.
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