with this beast of a woman
dead beside her and Eugene than to suffer this way. She didn't deserve
it. Why did God torture her so? Why was she made to bleed at every step
by this her sacrificial love? Had she not been a good wife? Had she not
laid every tribute of tenderness, patience, self-abnegation,
self-sacrifice and virtue on the altar of love? What more could God ask?
What more could man want? Had she not waited on Eugene in sickness and
health? She had gone without clothes, gone without friends, hidden
herself away in Blackwood the seven months while he was here frittering
away his health and time in love and immorality, and what was her
reward? In Chicago, in Tennessee, in Mississippi, had she not waited on
him, sat up with him of nights, walked the floor with him when he was
nervous, consoled him in his fear of poverty and failure, and here she
was now, after seven long months of patient waiting and watching--eating
her lonely heart out--forsaken. Oh, the inconceivable inhumanity of the
human heart! To think anybody could be so vile, so low, so unkind, so
cruel! To think that Eugene with his black eyes, his soft hair, his
smiling face, could be so treacherous, so subtle, so dastardly! Could he
really be as mean as this note proved him to be? Could he be as brutal,
as selfish? Was she awake or asleep? Was this a dream? Ah, God! no, no
it was not a dream. It was a cold, bitter, agonizing reality. And the
cause of all her suffering was there in the bathroom now shaving
himself.

For one moment she thought she would go in and strike him where he
stood. She thought she could tear his heart out, cut him up, but then
suddenly the picture of him bleeding and dead came to her and she
recoiled. No, no, she could not do that! Oh, no, not Eugene--and yet and
yet----

"Oh, God, let me get my hands on that woman!" she said to herself. "Let
me get my hands on her. I'll kill her, I'll kill her! I'll kill her!"

This torrent of fury and self-pity was still raging in her heart when
the bathroom knob clicked and Eugene came out. He was in his undershirt,
trousers and shoes, looking for a clean white shirt. He was very nervous
over the note which had been thrown in scraps into the box, but looking
in the kitchen and seeing the pieces still there he was slightly
reassured. Angela was not there; he could come back and get them when he
found out where she was. He went on into the bedroom, looking into the
front room as he did so. S