Something in her voice touched him; or it might have been that he was fonder of her than he supposed, for as he went by the pathway that poor Aunt Anne had hurried along, bowed down with insult and despair, only twenty minutes before, there was a less sullen expression than usual on his face. He thought of the clinging hands and tearful eyes, and the undisguised love written on her face, with something like satisfaction. He would settle down with her, once he possessed the money. He liked the idea of it; it would be good to be waited upon by her, to go abroad with her perhaps, to buy comfort and luxury, and to feel her hanging about him. He lingered in thought over her caresses; he remembered Aunt Anne’s and shuddered. He had said truly enough that he could not bear the latter much longer; toleration had grown to endurance, endurance to dislike, and dislike to loathing. He was sensible of even being beneath the same roof with her; her voice irritated him, her touch produced a feeling that was almost fear. Every step he made now towards the house that contained her was reluctant and almost shrinking. He could just bear life with her if she gave him good food and comfort and money he could not obtain elsewhere; but unless she gave him these things, which he counted worth any price that could be paid, he felt it would be impossible to stay with her longer. Warmth and idleness and comfort were gods to him; but his loathing for the poor soul who had struggled for months to give them to him was developing into horror. He waited, doggedly, day after day for Sir William Rammage’s death. When that happened he would seize the money that would be hers and, without mercy, leave her to her fate; he and Caroline could easily keep out of her reach. If she would not give him the money he would make life impossible for her to bear. He had not the least intention of murdering her, but in imagination he often put his hands round her throat, and all his fingers felt her life growing still beneath them. He resented everything she did: her voice, her footstep, her tender, wrinkled face; he felt as if her winking left eye were driving him mad—as if there were poison in her breath. He considered her life an offence against him, except as a means of giving him money. When once she had done that, when she had given him the thousands for which he had married her, he wanted her for ever out of his sight, and underground; he gloated in imagination over the deepness of the grave into which he would have her put, and the silence and darkness that would surround her.