“I am not that, George; and Harry knows it--that is the worst of it! If you were to tell him you and I had both recognized my jewels on another woman, he would tell you that it was only to be even with me for having preferred to his the society of another man.” George looked at her in astonishment, for she spoke with bitter self-reproach and kept her eyes away from his. “My dear Annie, you are reproaching yourself very unnecessarily. When Harry himself behaved to you like a coal-heaver, even he could scarcely be surprised that you preferred any society to his.” “Not any society--I did not mean that.” “No, but that of men of his own rank, but not quite of his manners,” said George, drawing his chair a little nearer to hers. “I did not mean that either. As long as I preferred any society to his, it didn’t matter. So I thought myself safe; it seemed quite natural to dislike and fear Harry when he neglected me and snubbed me, and bullied and at last struck me. I felt that, if I stayed with him any longer, his very presence would poison me,” said she with rising excitement. “No wonder! You were quite right to leave him, and, if you had been wise, you would never have come back to the brute.” “Do you think so? Now I think I was quite wrong. Even if I could not have loved him, it would have been safer to stay with him, safer for him and for me.” “Safer for you!” “Yes, yes. I thought I was so strong, so hard, that I could do without affection altogether--especially as affection could, since my foolish marriage, only mean Harry’s. And I was foolish and cared for him too little to ask myself whether he could do without it as well.” “He had shown that he didn’t deserve yours, at all events. If you had stayed at the Grange, I think you might have been happy, Annie; but it would have been thanks to your husband’s family, and not to him. You see, Lilian was just going to be married, and my mother would soon have warmed to you when her other daughter was gone; and, if Harry had not changed his tone, I would have packed him off somewhere, and then you would have been surrounded by nothing but worshipers. And, if you had liked the Grange better in those circumstances, my dear child, I don’t think any one could have blamed you.” “I think they would, though. You see, my fault all through my married life has been that I looked upon my husband as a contemptible tyrant to be given way to or avoided as the case might be, never as a reasonable being whose opinions and feelings were to be considered for their own sake.”