"
"And why did you sacrifice yourself in the beginning, before ever
you'd seen my face?"
"Auntie made me. It was Auntie's fault, not mine. I told her I was
afraid of him."
"Your aunt had been that gait with him herself, in her time?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Yes, I twigged that--and then the mealy-mouthed, filthy hag came over
me. I on'y guessed, but _you_ knew. Answer me;" and his grip tightened
on her throat, and he shook her. "Answer."
"Oh, I suppose so."
"And that cousin--the one he paid for in foreign parts?"
"I suppose so."
"Those rooms at the Cottage. They were furnished and set out for you
and him to take your pleasure."
"He used them for other women--once or twice."
"What other women?"
"Girls from London."
As he questioned her and listened to her answers his passion took a
rhythm, upward and downward, from blind wrath to black sorrow; and it
seemed that the points reached by the rising curves were becoming less
high, while the descending curves went lower and lower, through sorrow
into shame, and still down, to fathomless depths of despair. He had
heard all that it was necessary to hear. His life that he had thought
marvelous and splendid was ridiculous and pitiful; what he had fancied
to be success was failure; all that he had been proud of as being
gained by his own merit had been brought to him by his wife's
disgrace.
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