"Richard," she said all at once; "would you mind my living away from
you?"
"Away from me? Why, that's what you were doing when I married you.
What then was the meaning of marrying at all?"
"You wouldn't like me any the better for telling you."
"I don't object to know."
"Because I thought I could do nothing else. You had got my promise a
long time before that, remember. Then, as time went on, I regretted
I had promised you, and was trying to see an honourable way to break
it off. But as I couldn't I became rather reckless and careless
about the conventions. Then you know what scandals were spread, and
how I was turned out of the training school you had taken such time
and trouble to prepare me for and get me into; and this frightened
me and it seemed then that the one thing I could do would be to let
the engagement stand. Of course I, of all people, ought not to have
cared what was said, for it was just what I fancied I never did care
for. But I was a coward--as so many women are--and my theoretic
unconventionality broke down. If that had not entered into the case
it would have been better to have hurt your feelings once for all
then, than to marry you and hurt them all my life after... And you
were so generous in never giving credit for a moment to the rumour."
"I am bound in honesty to tell you that I weighed its probability and
inquired of your cousin about it."
"Ah!" she said with pained surprise.
"I didn't doubt you."
"But you inquired!"
"I took his word."
Her eyes had filled. "HE wouldn't have inquired!" she said.
"But you haven't answered me. Will you let me go away? I know how
irregular it is of me to ask it--"
"It is irregular."
"But I do ask it! Domestic laws should be made according to
temperaments, which should be classified. If people are at all
peculiar in character they have to suffer from the very rules that
produce comfort in others! ... Will you let me?"
"But we married--"
"What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances," she burst out,
"if they make you miserable when you know you are committing no sin?"
"But you are committing a sin in not liking me."