. . No? Ah, I see,
you've been saving it all up to tell him face to face. Oh, happy, happy
you!"
It was too late to leave now. The hour of my trial had come. There was
no possibility of escape. It was just as if Satan had been holding me in
the net of my sin, so that I could not fly away.
At three o'clock next day (which was the day before the day fixed for
the reception) I heard the motor-car going off to meet my husband at
Blackwater. At four o'clock I heard it return. A few minutes afterwards
I heard my husband's voice in the hall. I thought he would come up to me
directly, but he did not do so, and I did not attempt to go down. When,
after a while, I asked what had become of him, I was told that he was in
the library with Alma, and that they were alone.
Two hours passed.
To justify and fortify myself I thought how badly my husband had behaved
to me. I remembered that he had married me from the most mercenary
motives; that he had paid off his mistress with the money that came
through me; that he had killed by cruelty the efforts I had made to love
him; that he had humiliated me by gross infidelities committed on my
honeymoon.
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