AC dBooks

I could not plead that I did not know of this condition. I was young but
I was not a child. I had been brought up in a convent, but a convent is
not a nursery. Then why had I not thought of it?
While sitting before the fire, gathering together these dark thoughts, I
was in such fear that I was always conscious of my husband's movements
in the adjoining room. At one moment there was the jingling of his glass
against the decanter, at another moment the smell of his cigarette
smoke. From time to time he came to the door and called to me in a sort
of husky whisper, asking if I was in bed.
"Don't keep me long, little girl."
I shuddered but made no reply.
At last he knocked softly and said he was coming in. I was still
crouching over the fire as he came up behind me.
"Not in bed yet?" he said. "Then I must put you to bed."
Before I could prevent him he had lifted me in his arms, dragged me on
to his knee and was pulling down my hair, laughing as he did so, calling
me by coarse endearing names and telling me not to fight and struggle.


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