ere becoming acute enough to understand
women's ways. In another minute I was walking rapidly home. When
I came to the door it was locked. I knocked and knocked and no
one came. I called out and threatened to kick in the door. Still
no one came. Mad with rage I commenced to put my threat into
execution, when the door was opened by Miss T., half-naked, in
her petticoats, and pale as death, but no longer defiant. "So
I've caught you, have I?" I _looked_, but could not trust myself
to speak. Wondering why A. did not appear I went into the
bedroom. She was lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her,
on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands
piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, "Send her
away, send her away." Then she became unconscious and going into
the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on
her dress) out of the house. I spoke scornfully as if addressing
a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope
never to see on a woman's face again. What they had been doing
with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than
confess. When A. had recovered from her fit she denied that there
had been anything between them, and stuck to it doggedly, but
with such a forlorn look I had not the heart to prosecute my
inquiries.
For my part, all the efforts I had been making for so long seemed
for a time to be in vain; for some weeks I sank into a sort of
satyriasis, and even my anger against Miss T. turned to a
prurient curiosity. At the same time I was not always able to
adhere to my diet. But both as regards coition and diet I was
still fighting, and on the whole successfully. My fits of temper,
however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair. One
day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of
"God and his twopenny ha'penny revolving balls," referring to the
planetary system. But for long walks I should have gone mad. A.
was drinking in the intervals of her fits. I found half-empty
bottles of wine hidden away. This did not improve my temper, and
one day--this was when she was well and up--I struck her a heavy
blow on the face, and she aimed a glass decanter at me. She went
home to her mother and I lived alone in the cottage. I heard soon
afterwards that her husband had
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