"I only do what I must."

Her tone turned me cold. Her set face frightened me, and angered me, for
there was a curious obstinacy in it. I left the room abruptly, and did
not return. That night I had no sleep.

I am not a coward, but I find that I am inclined to fear that which
fears me. I dread an animal that always avoids me silently more than an
animal that actually attacks me. The thing that runs from me makes me
shiver, the thing that creeps away when I come near wakes my uneasiness.
At this time there rose up in me a strange feeling towards Margot.
The white, fair child I had married was at moments--only at
moments--horrible to me. I felt disposed to shun her. Something within
cried out against her. Long ago, at the instant of our introduction, an
unreasoning sensation that could only be called dread had laid hold
upon me. That dread returned from the night of our explanation, returned
deepened and added to. It prompted me to a suggestion which I had no
sooner made than I regretted it. On the morning following I told
Margot that in future we had better occupy separate rooms. She assented
quietly, but I thought a furtive expression of relief stole for a moment
into her face.

I was deeply angered with her and with myself; yet, now that I knew
beyond question my wife's physical terror of me, I was-half afraid of
her. I felt as if I could not bring myself to lie long hours by her side
in the darkness, by the side of a woman who was shrinking from me, who
was watching me when I could not see her. The idea made my very flesh
creep.

Yet I hated myself for this shrinking of the body, and sometimes
hated her for rousing it. A hideous struggle was going on within me--a
struggle between love and impotent anger and despair, between the lover
and the master. For I am one of the old-fashioned men who think that a
husband ought to be master of his wife as well as of his house.

How could I be master of a woman I secretly feared? My knowledge of
myself spurred me through acute irritation almost to the verge of
madness.

All calm was gone. I was alternately gentle to my wife and almost
ferocious towards her, ready to fall at her feet and worship her or to
seize her and treat her with physical violence. I only restrained myself
by an effort.

My variations of manner did not seem to affect her. Indeed, it sometimes
struck me that she feared me more when I was kind to her than when I was
harsh.

And I knew, by a thousan