still there. There sounded at the
house door a loud postman's knock, and in a few minutes someone came up
the stairs, doubtless to bring a letter. The bedroom door opened; she
heard her husband thank the servant and again shut himself in.

The fire which she had been about to use for cooking was all but dead.
She rose and put fresh coals on. There was a small oblong mirror over
the mantelpiece; it showed her so ghastly a face that she turned quickly
away.

If she succeeded in escaping from her prison, whither should she go? Her
mother would receive her, but it was impossible to go to Wanley, to live
near the Manor. Impossible, too, to take refuge with Stella. If she
fled and hid herself in some other part of London, how was life to be
supported? But there were graver obstacles. Openly to flee from her
husband was to subject herself to injurious suspicions--it might be,
considering Mutimer's character, to involve Hubert in some intolerable
public shame. Or, if that worst extremity were avoided', would it not
be said that she had deserted her husband because he had suddenly become
poor?

That last thought brought the blood to her cheeks.

But to live with him after this, to smear over a deadly wound and
pretend it was healed, to read hourly in his face the cowardly triumph
over her weakness, to submit herself--Oh, what rescue from this hideous
degradation! She went to the window, as if it had been possible to
escape by that way; she turned again and stood moaning, with her hands
about her head. When was the worst to come in this life so long since
bereft of hope, so forsaken of support from man or God? The thought of
death came to her; she subdued the tumult of her agony to weigh it well
Whom would she wrong by killing herself? Herself, it might be; perchance
not even death would be sacred against outrage.

She heard a neighbouring clock strike five, and shortly after her
husband entered the room. Had she looked at him she would have seen an
inexplicable animation in his face. He paced the floor once or twice
in silence, then asked in a hard voice, though the tone was quite other
than before:

'Will you tell me what it was you talked of that day in the wood?'

She did not reply.

'I suppose by refusing to speak you confess that you dare not let me
know?'

Physical torture could not have wrung a word from her. She felt her
heart surge with hatred.

He went to the cupboard in which food was kept, took out a lo