It was, in truth, his
intention that it should be so. And she had already begun to have
some knowledge of the persistency of his character. She was already
aware that he was a man not likely to be moved from his word. He had
gone, and it was his intention to go. And he had declared with a
magnanimity which she now felt to be odious, and almost mean, what
liberal arrangements he had made for her maintenance. She was in no
want of income. She told herself that she would rather starve in the
street than eat his bread, unless she might eat it from the same loaf
with him; that she would rather perish in the cold than enjoy the
shelter of his roof, unless she might enjoy it with him.

There she remained the whole day by herself, thinking that something
must occur to mitigate the severity of the sentence which he had
pronounced against her. It could not be that he should leave her
thus,--he whose every word, whose every tone, whose every look, whose
every touch had hitherto been so full of tenderness. If he had loved
as she had loved how could he live without her? He had explained
his idea of a wife, and though he had spoken the words in his anger,
still she had been proud. But now it seemed as though he would have
her believe that she was wholly unnecessary to him. It could not be
so. He could not so have deceived her. It must be that he would want
her as she wanted him, and that he must return to her to satisfy the
cravings of his own heart.

But as time went on her tenderness gradually turned to anger. He had
pronounced the sentence, the heaviest sentence which his mind could
invent against her whom he had made his own. Was that sentence just?
She told herself again and again that it was most unjust. The fault
which she had committed deserved no such punishment. She confessed to
herself that she had promised to become the wife of a man unworthy of
her; but when she had done so she had not known her present husband.
He at least had no cause of anger with her in regard to that. And
she, as soon as she had found out her mistake and the man's character
had become in part revealed to her, had with a terrible courage taken
the bull by the horns and broken away from the engagement which
outward circumstances at any rate made attractive. Then with her
mother she had gone abroad, and there she had met with Mr. Western.
At the moment of their meeting she had been at any rate innocent in
regard to him. From that moment she had perf