Before her sobbing vehemence he had grown calm. These words were so unimaginable on her lips that he could make no reply save stubborn repetition of his refusal. And having uttered that he went from the room, changing the key to the outside and locking her in. Fear lest he might be unable to withhold himself from laying hands upon her was the cause of his retreat. The lust of cruelty was boiling in him, as once or twice before. Her beauty in revolt made a savage of him. He went into the bedroom and there waited. Adela sat alone, sobbing still, but tearless. Her high-spirited nature once thoroughly aroused, it was some time before she could reason on what had come to pass. The possibility of such an end to her miseries had never presented itself even in her darkest hours; endurance was all she could ever look forward to. As her blood fell into calmer flow she found it hard to believe that she had not dreamt this scene of agony. She looked about the room. There on the table were the vegetables she had been preparing; her hands bore the traces of the work she had done this morning. It seemed as though she had only to rise and go on with her duties as usual. Her arm was painful, just below the shoulder. Yes, that was where he had seized her with his hard hand to push her away from the door. What had she said in her distraction? She had broken away from him, and repudiated her wifehood. Was it not well done? If he believed her unfaithful to him-- At an earlier period of her married life such a charge would have held her mute with horror. Its effect now was not quite the same; she could face the thought, interrogate herself as to its meaning, with a shudder, indeed, but a shudder which came of fear as well as loathing. Life was no longer an untried country, its difficulties and perils to be met with the sole aid of a few instincts and a few maxims; she had sounded the depths of misery and was invested with the woeful knowledge of what we poor mortals call the facts of existence. And sitting here, as on the desert bed of a river whose water had of a sudden ceased to flow, she could regard her own relation to truths, however desolating, with the mind which had rather brave all than any longer seek to deceive itself. Of that which he imputed to her she was incapable; that such suspicion of her could enter his mind branded him with baseness. But his jealousy was justified; howsoever it had awakened in him, it was sustained by truth. Was it her duty to tell him that, and so to render it impossible for him to seek to detain her? But would the confession have any such result? Did he not already believe her criminal, and yet forbid her to leave him? On what terms did she stand with a man whose thought was devoid of delicacy, who had again and again proved himself without understanding of the principles of honour? And could she indeed make an admission which would compel her at the same time to guard against revolting misconceptions?